It should be obvious that Medicine is in reality Gender Medicine. It should be obvious, since obstetricians assist parturients since the mists of times, and males have always gotten ill and have always died before women. It should be obvious, since genetics, hormones and all epigenetics stimuli act in a gender-dependent manner. But the concept, in reality, may not be all that obvious. For the present international meeting we chose the title “Gender and Science”, but a correct subtitle could be “Identity and gender differences”. By looking at the program prepared by the Scientific Committee we can appreciate what will be the “leitmotiv” of the 2 days in Rome: we aim to demonstrate – primarily by our point of view (a pharmacologist and an endocrinologist, and also – not by chance – a female and male) what are the “loci minoris resistentiae” of a scientific hermeneutics which does not take gender (in its broader term) into account. We would also like to document which are the meeting points, the points of similarity, or even of identity of the two (up to now) genders. In order to do so, we chose a few of the n th possible topics which could allow us to represent gender differences and identities: sex and reproduction; but also the heart and the circulation; metabolism of the youngest of the endocrine glands – bone; to finish with the effects which can mostly affect clinicians’ daily activities, that is those related to gender drugs and regulatory agencies. All this will be accompanied by some special “gender lectures”, on exciting topics given by opinion leaders in their fields. The meeting will have a lot of science, as it can be desumed by the title of the meeting, of the lectures and of the symposia. “Golden Communications” will be selected and receive an award from the Scientific Committee led by Prof. F. Naro. The meeting will also cover sociological, bioethical and philosophic topics. We hope to see you in Rome, in order to celebrate together a new perspective and a new science: gender science.
Flavia Franconi and Andrea Lenzi Co-Presidents of the Meeting