In a recent OPIG antibody meeting, the topic of immune system differences between men and women came up. I thought this was cool and something I hadn’t read about, so what a brilliant topic for a blog most. This post is a high-level overview – I’ve listed the papers I’ve used at the bottom of this post so please consult them for more details!
Differences between males and females can lead to pretty big disparities in disease prevalence and outcomes. For example, non-reproductive cancers occur predominantly in males, whilst the majority of autoimmune disease occurs in females. Many factors may be impacting this, including environmental, genetic and hormonal influences, and much more research is required to fully understand these processes. Here I focus on sex-based biology, rather than gender, though both can influence the immune response.
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