Conference Addresses Impact Of Gender On Current Research And Treatment Strategies For Various Diseases

New York, NY – April 15, 2002 – The third annual Conference on Gender-Specific Medicine will focus on the importance of biological sex and gender factors in research and treatment for a number of diseases, including cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, sexual dysfunction in men and women, psychiatric diseases, eating disorders, autoimmune diseases, and others. The conference is co-sponsored by the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia University and the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health. “Gender is an important variable in research and treatment of disease,” says Dr. Marianne Legato, founder and director of the Partnership for Women’s Health at Columbia. “This conference updates primary care physicians, specialists, researchers, and government officials on what current research is telling us about the impact of gender on normal function and disease. The conference will encourage practitioners to ask questions about gender as they treat their patients or pursue their own research objectives.” The conference will begin with a keynote address on “Women’s Health Research and the Science of Sex and Gender Differences” by Dr. Vivian Pinn, director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health and associate director for research on women’s health at the National Institutes of Health. “Women’s health research has come a long way in the last decade, but we still have a lot to learn,” says Dr. Pinn. “We will be hearing from the leading experts in their fields and gaining important knowledge at this conference, which will arm us with the insight to move forward in the right directions for improving healthcare for women and men.” Highlights of the two-day conference include luncheon panel discussions on the challenge of communicating medical information to the public and the diagnosis, treatment, and outcome of eating disorders in men and women. Dr. Nancy Snyderman, medical correspondent for ABC News, will moderate the first panel discussion addressing the challenge of communicating medical information to the public. Panelists are Helena Foulkes, vice president of marketing for CVS/pharmacy; Dr. Bruce Hensel, associate clinical professor of medicine at UCLA School of Medicine and chief health, medical, and science editor for NBC4 Los Angeles; Mary Nelson, marketing director for Procter & Gamble; and Myrna Blyth, publishing director and editor-in-chief for Ladies’ Home Journal magazine. Dr. Ann Kearney-Cooke, director of the Cincinnati Psychotherapy Institute, will moderate the second luncheon panel discussion about eating disorders in men and women. Panelists are Dr. Donna Moreau, associate professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University and director of the Children’s Anxiety & Depression Clinic in New York City; and Dr. Arnold Andersen, professor of psychiatry and director of the Eating Disorders Program at the University of Iowa. The conference will take place on April 22-23 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. A complete agenda can be found on the Partnership for Women’s Health website, http://partnership.hs.columbia.edu.

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