We invite you to join us for an interactive workshop on sex- and gender-specific issues in transplantation as important, but potentially under-recognized factors determining patient and transplant outcomes.

In 2015 the National Institute of Health (NIH) launched a notice stating the expectation that “sex as a biological variable will be factored into research designs, analyses, and reporting in vertebrate animal and human studies.” The recognition of potential differences and their impact for science has been an important step forward. It reinforces the establishment of still mostly unavailable but necessary scientific insights. While the NIH motivates researchers to consider sex, it also acknowledges the importance of gender for health and disease processes. Sex refers to the biological and physiological differences, gender is seen as a social concept. Nevertheless, both are interrelated and potentially inseparable.

Our workshop starts by providing epidemiological findings on access and outcome in transplantation, followed by evaluating underlying and causative factors
for potential differences. We discuss not only how to implement sex/gender in basic and clinical research proposals, but also how to translate generated evidence into guidelines and policies. Throughout the workshop we take a sex- and gender-based perspective, being aware that many times we may discuss sex rather than gender due to data limitations.

We look forward to presenting a comprehensive overview of the current evidence that intends to dispel existing myths on sex- and gender-specific questions in
transplantation. Finally, we expect to identify areas where more basic and/or clinical research is needed.