The National Institutes of Health, the US agency involved in medical research, has just announced new policies that aim to end gender bias in laboratory research.
The agency is overhauling biomedical research methods that rely heavily on male lab animals. The policies have long been in place for studies that come before clinical trials involving human test subjects.
The NIH said that it plans to distribute $10.1 million in grant money to 82 scientists. The recipients of the fund, who are affiliated with leading hospitals and universities, are spread out across different fields of expertise. The scientists are working on conditions such as migraines, stroke, drug addiction and fetal development. The grants are meant to supplement funds for the ongoing research of the recipients and to stimulate projects that look into the gender differences in certain medical conditions.
"This funding strategy demonstrates our commitment to moving the needle toward better health for all Americans, while helping grow our knowledge base for both sexes and building research infrastructure to aid future studies... The scientists receiving these awards have approached their research questions with fresh thinking, and are looking for innovation and discovery through a new lens," Dr. Janine Austin Clayton, the NIH's associate director for women's health research, said in a press release.
The grants are also meant to give researchers the capacity to include more female test subjects. According to the NIH, the dominance of male subjects in preclinical research can obscure sex-related findings that may later be useful to studies conducted on humans.
Scientists prefer conducting experiments on male subjects because it reduces variability. There is a view that the hormonal cycles of females can alter the results of biomedical research. This has resulted in a lack of knowledge in the way diseases affect women. KC Brennan, an assistant professor of neurology from the University of Utah, said that including female mice in his research, which looks into migraines, pushes costs higher because his team would need to conduct more tests due to the estrus cycle of the subjects.
The NIH, along with the Office of Research on Women's Health, launched the supplement program last year. The initial investment provided $4.6 million in funding to 50 projects.
