About IGM
The International Society for Gender Medicine (IGM) is an international nonprofit organization serving as an umbrella entity for professional and national societies. Established in 2006, IGM's primary mission is to promote and advance gender medicine on a global scale. This entails fostering gender-specific research in the fields of basic sciences, clinical medicine, and public health, as well as supporting ongoing professional development, communication, and information dissemination. Over time, the society has grown in tandem with increased attention to sex and gender differences, now encompassing numerous national societies and individual members.
Gender medicine is founded on the understanding that individuals of different sexes may experience the same diseases differently. Disease pathophysiology can vary due to a combination of genetic, epidemiological, and biological sex/gender factors, as well as environmental influences. Consequently, diseases may manifest with distinct symptoms, respond differently to therapy, exhibit variations in tolerance and coping mechanisms, and result in different survival rates.
To accurately assess these differences and reduce healthcare inequalities, it is vital to identify opportunities for incorporating sex and gender indicators in evaluating outcomes, assessing the effectiveness of the care process, and measuring the quality of healthcare services. There is also a need to reevaluate health policies from a gender perspective.
Therefore, the society's objectives include advancing the understanding of sex/gender differences by bringing together scientists and clinicians from diverse backgrounds in national and international societies. It seeks to facilitate interdisciplinary research on sex/gender differences within both basic and clinical frameworks, promote the application of new knowledge regarding sex/gender differences to enhance health and healthcare, and advocate for gender-specific public health issues. These efforts encompass providing information for individuals, institutions, and organizations in the field of gender medicine.
BOARD MEMBERS
Anna Maria Moretti, President: ammoretti14@gmail.com
Alessandea Carè, Treasurer: alessandra.care@iss.it
Leeor Shachar, Secretary: Leeor.shachar@gmail.com
Masahiro Akishita: akishita@m.u-tokyo.ac.jp
Gillian Einstein: gillian.einstein@utoronto.ca
Alexandra Kautzky-Willer: alexandra.kautzkywiller@meduniwien.ac.at
Ineke Klinge: i.klinge@sylvahome.nl
ASSOCIATE BOARD MEMBERS
Giovannella Baggio - President, Italian Research Centre for Gender Health and Medicine (Centro Studi Nazionale su Salute e Medicina di Genere), Italy giovannella.baggio@aopd.veneto.it
Marek Glezerman - President, The Israel Society for Gender and Sex Conscious Medicine, Israel m@glezerman.com
Marianne J Legato - President, The Foundation for Gender Specific Medicine, USA, mjl2@cumc.columbia.edu
Kateryna Ostrovskaya - President, Ukraine Society of Gender Medicine, Ukraine, ostrovskayae.a87@gmail.com
Ute Seeland - President, German Society of Gender Medicine (DGesGM), Germany, ute.seeland@charite.de
Miyuki Katai - President, The Japanese Association for Gender-Specific Medicine, Japan, mkataimd@grips.ac.jp
Our Board
Prof. Anna Maria Moretti MD
President
Prof. Anna Maria Moretti graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Bari in 1976. She obtained the title of Specialist in Allergic and Immunological Diseases, and subsequently in Respiratory System Diseases. She initiated her experience in respiratory diseases at the University Hospital of Bari, and later pursued further studies and worked as a visiting doctor at the University of Catania and the Brompton Hospital in London. From 2000 to 2018, she held the position of Head of the Respiratory Diseases Unit at the University Polyclinic of Bari in Italy. Since 2018, she has directed the S. Maria Respiratory Disease Diagnosis and Treatment Center at Bari Italy Hospital. She is a member of the Italian Society for Respiratory Diseases and served as President of the Italian Society of Respiratory Diseases from 2001 to 2005.
Over the past 15 years, she has actively promoted sex and gender medicine at both national and international levels. She is the founding member and current President of the Italian Scientific Society for Sexual and Gender Medicine (GISeG) and also serves as the current President of the International Society for Gender Medicine. Dr. Moretti is a member of the National Observatory for Gender Medicine and holds the position of Professor of Gender Medicine in numerous national master's programs. For many years, she was a member of various committees of scientific societies for gender medicine, including the Gender Medicine Group of the Italian National Health Institute (ISS) and the National Gender Medicine Commission of the National Federation of Orders of Surgeons and Dentists (FNOMCEO).
She is a part of the scientific committee of the "Journal of Sex and Gender-Specific Medicine," the "Monaldi Archive for Thoracic Diseases," and the ISS Gender Medicine Newsletter. Dr. Moretti has authored and published more than 100 scientific articles in professional respiratory and gender journals, as well as chapters in textbooks.
Dr. Alessandra Carè, MD
Board member - Treasurer
Dr. Alessandra Carè graduated in Biological Sciences at Sapienza University of Rome, where she then completed her residency in Medical Genetics. She began her experience in molecular biology at the Italian National Health Institute (INHI), subsequently expanding her expertise as a visiting scientist at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia.
Upon returning to INIH, she led the Molecular Oncology section of the Hematology, Oncology, and Molecular Medicine Department starting in 1989. In 1995, after a period at the National Cancer Institute in Milan, she focused her research projects on the molecular biology of tumors.
In 2017, Dr. Carè transitioned to the new Reference Center for Gender Medicine, where she served as the head of the Gender-specific Pathophysiology Section for one year before being appointed Director of the Center from October 2017 to July 2022. In this role, she actively promoted research studies aimed at identifying the pathophysiological bases responsible for sex and gender differences. Furthermore, in compliance with Italian law 3/2018, she carried out institutional activities, educational initiatives, and training related to innovative aspects of gender medicine.
She is currently a member of two Italian gender medicine societies: the Italian Health and Gender Group and the National Study Center on Gender Health and Medicine. Dr. Carè has authored approximately 100 publications in international peer-reviewed journals and has been the recipient of numerous research grants.
Dr. Leeor Shachar MD PhD (she, her)
Secretary
Dr. Shachar has graduated from Tel Aviv University in Israel with an MD degree. She specialized in family medicine and is a board-certified family physician. She has completed a PhD in medical sociology at Tel Aviv University and has won several scholarships and awards for outstanding achievements. In addition, she is a cognitive-behavioral therapist, with special interest in issues of women’s health, LGBTQ+, and chronic pain.
She is a lecturer of a Gender and Medicine course at Tel Aviv University as well as at Ben Gurion University. She has served on several national advisory boards, namely the Gender and Health Committee at The Ministry of Science and Technology; from 2018 until 2022, the head of the Committee for Treatment and Prevention of Sexual Harassment in Medical Staff, the Israel Ministry of Health. Since 2021 she has been a board member of the Israeli Society for Gender and Sex Conscious Medicine. She is a member of the national council for women’s health and for sex and gender conscious medicine at the Israeli Ministry of Health.
From 2018 until 2023 she was a member of the board of directors at Briah Foundation for promoting women’s rights in healthcare. She lectures and promotes gender medicine and culturally safe medicine for various audiences: laypersons, students and healthcare practitioners. She is the co-founder and promoter of Feminist Medicine in Israel.
Prof. Masahiro Akishita PhD
Board Member
Prof. Masahiro Akishita graduated from The University of Tokyo School of Medicine in 1985, and did fellowships ininternal medicine, cardiology and geriatric medicine in Tokyo.
He got a PhD in Medicine at The University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine in 1995.
After working as a PosDoc at Stanford University and Harvard Medical School, and Associate Professor at Kyorin University and The University of Tokyo, he became Professor and Chief at Department of Geriatric Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo in 2013.
His specialty is geriatric medicine, and he is a geriatrician. His research interest includes frailty, sarcopenia, dementia and geriatric syndrome such as polypharmacy. He developed guidelines for appropriate drug use for the elderly in Japan, and has been working in the governmental committee for the polypharmacy issue. He also spent many years for the research of gender difference and the role of sex hormones in geriatric medicine. Specifically, he studied the effects of estrogens and androgens on vascular aging, and clarified their protective physiological roles. He is an immediate past president of The Japan Geriatrics Society and The Japanese Association for Gender-Specific Medicine.
Prof. Gillian Einstein PhD
Board Member
Gillian Einstein is The Wilfred and Joyce Posluns Chair in Women’s Brain Health and Aging, Professor of Psychology at the University of Toronto, and Adjunct Scientist at Baycrest and Women’s College Hospitals. She is a board member of the International Gender Medicine Society, past-Chair of the Canadian Institutes of Health’s Institute of Gender and Health Advisory Board (2014-2024), and Founder and President of the Canadian Organization of Gender and Sex (COGS) Research. She leads the Women, Sex, Gender, and Dementia Cross-Cutting Program for the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration and Aging and Co-Leads the University of Toronto’s Women’s Brain Health Rounds. She has published on vision, Alzheimer disease, pain, sleep, and the effects of estrogens’ effects on memory and cognition. She is funded by CIHR, Brain Canada, The Ontario Brain Institute, and the Women’s Brain Health Initiative to understand how early life events, including surgeries and cultural practices, affect the trajectory of women’s brain health over the lifespan. Her lab focus currently is on how estradiol loss and treatment as well as stigma and immigration affect memory and cognition in diverse populations of women.
Professor Einstein uses a methodology that she developed called, "Situated Neuroscience" that uses a combination of qualitative, quantitative (questionnaires), and physiological (neuropsychology, brain imaging, blood biomarkers, polysomnography) methods (Very Mixed Methods) to explore how both sex and gender mediate women’s brain health.
Prof. Alexandra Kautzky-Willer, MD
Board member
Prof. Alexandra Kautzky-Willer studied and graduated in medicine at the Medical University of Vienna. She has specialized in Internal Medicine, in Endocrinology and Metabolism, and in Geriatrics and Palliative Care. Alexandra Kautzky-Willer is Professor of Gender Medicine, head of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism as well as of the Gender Medicine Unit and member of the management board of the Department of Medicine III of the Medical University of Vienna/General Hospital Vienna.
She has also been the chairwoman of the Working Group for Equal Opportunities and head of the university course gender medicine at the Medical University of Vienna for many years. Prof. Kautzky-Willer is president of the Austrian Society of Gender-Specific Medicine and board member and past-president of the International Society of Gender Medicine. Since her habilitation in 1997, she has been committed to the sex-specific and gender-sensitive treatment of men and women, persuading precision medicine of NCDs like obesity diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
To date, she has written 3 books, more than 300 scientific articles in professional journals and numerous reviews, editorials, book chapters, national and international guidelines, reports, and consensus- and expert-statements.
Prof. Ineke Klinge PhD
Board member
Ineke Klinge was trained as a biomedical scientist at the Free University in Amsterdam and afterwards acquired gender expertise at Utrecht University, where she wrote her PhD thesis. Her work has focused on innovation of methodologies for biomedical and health research. She held positions as professor Gender Medicine at the University of Göttingen (2008-2009) and Charité Universitätsmedizin, Berlin (2015) and as associate professor of Gender Medicine at Maastricht University (until 2014).
She has a longstanding involvement with EU research policy demonstrated by chairing the Horizon 2020 Advisory Group on Gender at the European Commission (2014-2018) and directing as Rapporteur Gendered Innovations 1 (2011-2013) and 2 ( 2018-2020) together with Londa Schiebinger from Stanford University. The policy review Gendered Innovations 2: How inclusive analysis contributes to Research and Innovation (2020) has resulted in the adoption of new funding conditions under Horizon Europe: integrating the gender dimension (that is sex and gender analysis) is now a mandatory requirement in all research and innovation projects across Horizon Europe, unless a topic explicitly specifies otherwise.
She has served on various international advisory boards a.o. the European Institute for Women’s Health and the Canadian Institute for Gender and Health (IGH) and a substantial number of EU projects. In the Netherlands she was a member of the programme committee for the ZonMW Gender & Health research programme. In 2017 the Dutch Society for Gender & Health was launched of which she is the first president. Since 2022 she is board member of the IGM. She published the book Sex and Gender in Biomedicine. Theories, Methodologies, Results and numerous articles on inclusive integration of sex and gender related factors into biomedical research
Prof. Ute Seeland MD, PhD
Board Member
Ute Seeland studied medicine in Berlin, Marburg, and Göttingen and graduated with a M.D. degree. She was trained in internal medicine and cardiology at the universities of Berlin, Cologne, and Homburg/Saarland, where she served as a research fellow and resident. She achieved the title of Specialist in Internal Medicine and in Gender Medicine DGesGM® in Germany. From 2021 to 2023, she was a visiting professor at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
She completed her Ph.D. at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin and obtained the Venia legendi for Internal Medicine/Gender and Sex-Specific Medicine. Since 2011, she has been a senior scientist and physician at the Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin, where she works in the research areas of arterial functional diseases and prevention in cardiovascular medicine with a focus on gender and sex-specific medicine. In 2024, Ute Seeland became a full professor of Gender and Sex-Specific Medicine and Research at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg. She is the head of the Department of Gender and Sex-Specific Medicine and Prevention with the University Outpatient Clinic at the Medical Faculty of Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany.
Another passion of hers is educational research. At the European level, at the Charité-Berlin and in Mainz, she played a key role in the development of learning content on gender and sex-specific medicine and its integration into the curricula for human medicine students. She currently continues this work in Magdeburg.
Dr. Seeland is a member of the German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK), actively contributing to cardiovascular research and innovation. Since 2019, she has led the Sex- and Gender Research Vasc Age Net Expert Group as part of the European COST action, together with Rosa Maria Bruno from France. Dr. Seeland received the Science Award of the German Medical Women's Association (DÄB) in 2019, recognizing her outstanding contributions to medical research and practice.
From 2020 to 2023, she held the position of head of the working group on Sex-specific Medicine in Cardiology at the German Society of Cardiology (DGK) and received the DGK scientific poster award. In 2023, she initiated and developed the first position paper for sex-specific medicine in cardiology.
In 2021, Dr. Seeland assumed the role of President at the German Society of Gender Medicine (DGesGM®) and became an associated board member of the International Society of Gender Medicine (IGM).
Associate board members URL: intgsm.org/about
Professor Giovannella Baggio, MD
Associate Board Member
Professor Giovannella Baggio, M.D., specializes in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology. In 1995, she became a Full Professor of Internal Medicine and held the Chair of Geriatrics and Gerontology at the University of Sassari from 1995 to 1999. From 1999 to 2017, she served as the Director of the Internal Medicine Unit at the University Hospital of Padua, and from 2013 to 2017, she held the first Chair in Italy for Gender Medicine at the University of Padua. Since 2018, she has been retired and holds the position of Senior Full Professor at the University of Padua.
She is the Founder (2009) and President of the Italian Research Centre for Gender Health and Medicine and has organized numerous National Congresses on Gender Medicine in Padua. In 2012, in Baltimore, she was elected as a member of the Scientific Board of the International Society for Gender Medicine (IGM). Since 2015, she has been the Scientific Editor of the Italian Journal of Gender Specific Medicine, which has now changed its name to the Journal of Sex and Gender-Specific Medicine. She was the President and organizer of the 10th IGM Congress in 2022, held in Padua on September 16-17. She is also the author of more than 270 publications in international and national journals and has co-edited 6 monographs.
Prof. Marek Glezerman, MD
Associate Board Member
Prof. Marek Glezerman studied Medicine in Paris and Frankfurt, graduating from the Medical School at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt. He completed fellowships in gynecologic oncology and pelvic surgery in Germany, the USA, and Canada, as well as Sabbaticals at the Weizman Institute of Sciences in Israel and various Obstetrics and Gynecology departments in the USA and Germany.
Professor Glezerman has chaired in succession for 25 years the departments of Obstetrics and Gynecology at three major healthcare centers in Israel. Additionally, he served for 14 years as the chairman of the National Steering Committee of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Maccabi Health Sick fund in Israel. He is a member of the National Council for Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Israel Ministry of Health.
Over the past 14 years, he has been actively involved in promoting Gender and Sex Conscious Medicine on a national and international level. Prof. Glezerman is the founding president of the Israel Society for Gender- and Sex-Conscious Medicine and a past-president and current associate board member of the International Society for Gender Medicine. He serves as the Head of Gender- and Sex-Conscious Medicine at Tel Aviv University.
Prof. Glezerman has written/edited 8 books and published more than 340 scientific articles in professional journals, as well as chapters in textbooks.
Prof. Miyuki Katai, MD PhD
Associate Board Member
Prof. Miyuki Katai, a graduate of Shinshu University School of Medicine in Japan, holds an M.D. and a Ph.D., specializing in endocrinology. As a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School, she served at Massachusetts General Hospital and Joslin Diabetes Center in the U.S.A from 1998 to 2001.
Upon returning to Japan, she dedicated her career to Gender Medicine, actively involved with the International Society of Gender Medicine (IGM) since its inaugural meeting in 2006 at Berlin. From 2007 to 2020, she served as an Associate Professor at Tokyo Women's Medical University, focusing on Gender Medicine and Female Internal Medicine. In 2020, she assumed the position of Professor at the Health Services Center of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, becoming its director in 2023.
Beyond academia, she contributed as a member of the Tokyo Metropolitan Council for Gender Equality from 2016 to 2018, influencing the introduction of the perspective of Gender Medicine in the health action plan. She took the lead in the "AI Diagnostic Support for Women's Medicine" project adopted by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) from 2019 to 2021. Her leadership extends to positions such as Director of Japan Thyroid Association (2021-the present), Vice President of The Japanese Association for Gender-Specific Medicine (2022-2023), and she is the President of The Japanese Association for Gender-Specific Medicine since January 2024.
Recognized as a pioneer in Gender Medicine in Japan, she actively raises awareness on Gender Medicine through lectures, interviews, and media appearances on NHK, Japan's national television station, contributing to numerous interviews in Japanese major newspapers and magazines.
Kateryna Ostrovska, MD
Associate Board Member
Kateryna Ostrovska received a Degree in General Medicine from Dnipropetrovsk State Medical Academy. Further, Kateryna started her career as a General Practitioner - Family Doctor. From 2017 to 2020, she combined her clinical practice with the role of the Head Physician at a private clinic in ‘Zdorovoe Pokolenie.’
In 2018, Kateryna became the nominee selected for the International Course on Innovations In Women’s Health organized by the Golda Meir MASHAV Carmel International Training Center in Israel. Having obtained knowledge about sex and gender medicine, after her return, Kateryna established the Ukrainian Society for Gender and Anti-Aging Medicine. Subsequently, Kateryna was involved in a range of local gender mainstream supportive initiatives funded by grants.
In 2020, Kateryna redirected her efforts to interventions at a regional and national level when she opted for the position of Health Governance Specialist with the United Nations Development Programme. As a Project Manager for this organization, Kateryna was engaged in technical assistance to develop the conflict-affected healthcare facilities in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts in Ukraine.
Since 2021, Kateryna has been acting as the Health Workforce Optimization and Policy Workstream Lead in the USAID Health Reform Support Project. Her scope of work, chiefly, is connected to the continuing professional development of medical personnel and human resources for health planning. Currently, Kateryna remains the President of the Ukrainian Society for Gender and Anti-Aging Medicine and is an Associate Board Member of the International Society for Gender Medicine.
Prof. Marianne J Legato MD, FACP. PhD (hon)
Honorary Board Member
Marianne J. Legato, M.D., F.A.C.P., Ph.D. (hon), is an internationally known academic physician, author, lecturer, and specialist in gender-specific medicine. She is Professor Emerita of Clinical Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School.
Dr. Legato founded the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University in 1997 and has presided over this organization since then (gendermed.org). Doctor Legato published the first textbook on gender medicine, “Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine,” in 2004, and the 4th edition appeared in December 2023. She has founded and served as chief editor of three scientific journals, namely, “The Journal of Gender-Specific Medicine,” “Gender Medicine,” and “Gender and the Genome.” Dr. Legato spent her research career doing cardiovascular research on the structure and function of the cardiac cell. The American Heart Association and the National Institutes of Health supported her work. She also served as a scientific advisor to the Office of Research on Women's Health at the National Institutes of Health. She won the Murray Steele Award, the Martha Lyon Slater Fellowship, a four-year Senior Investigator Award from the American Heart Association. She won a coveted Research Career Development Award from the NIH and sat on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s study section on cardiovascular disease as well as the Basic Science Council of the American Heart Association.
Among the many awards for her worldwide leadership role in gender-specific medicine, she was included in the 2003 National Library of Medicine’s exhibit, “Changing the Face of Medicine.” She received the President’s Award from Women in Health Management, the Shirley Sacks Women’s Health Award for Distinguished Service in Gender-Specific Medicine from the National Council on Women’s Health, and the “Woman in Science” award from the American Medical Women’s Association. She writes extensively for the lay public. In 1992, Dr. Legato won the American Heart Association’s Blakeslee Award for the best book written for the lay public on cardiovascular disease with her publication of “The Female Heart.” Among her books for the general public are “What Women Need to Know,” “Eve’s Rib,” “Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget,” and “Why Men Die First.” Her books have been translated into dozens of languages. She is a practicing internist in New York City and has been listed each year in New York Magazine’s Best Doctors since the feature’s inception in 1993 through 2023.
Dr. Legato has served on the board of IGM for many years and is currently an honorary board member of IGM.