Final Report Summary - WAYS (Role of Liver Estrogen Receptor in female Energy Metabolism, Reproduction and Aging: What About Your Liver Sexual Functions?)
For more than 30 years our group has been very much active in the study of the physiological relevance of estrogens in female and male physio-pathology. By the generation and use of very innovative molecular imaging tools, we were able to identify the liver as a major target of estrogens in mammals. The main scientific achievement of the ERC WAYS program is to have provided the final demonstration of the relevance of mammalian liver for the activity of estrogens and the tight association between metabolic and reproductive functions that is a hallmark of female physiology. Besides putting the bases for a novel understanding of the evolutionary origins of male and female differential metabolism, our studies pinpointed the existence of sex-specific strategies pursued by male and female metabolic organs when confronted with specific alimentary, environmental or pathological stimuli and unraveled their underlying molecular mechanism. Because of that, these studies create a novel paradigm for precision medicine where sex has to be considered as a fundamental biological variable.
It is our hope that our findings will have an influence for the treatment of women, particularly in the third of their life ensuing the cessation of ovarian functions and will help in the design of novel and finally effective and safe drugs aimed at preventing or at least slowing the progression of the pathologies that typically are associated with the post-menopause.
Spurred by the finding that the incidence of drug-derived side effects is significantly higher in females with respect to males, a recent political address is to reinforce the analysis of sex and gender effect on human physiopathology: we believe that our studies anticipated significantly the vision of the necessity to better understand sex-specific physio-pathology and provided very important guide for these type of investigations.
It is our hope that our findings will have an influence for the treatment of women, particularly in the third of their life ensuing the cessation of ovarian functions and will help in the design of novel and finally effective and safe drugs aimed at preventing or at least slowing the progression of the pathologies that typically are associated with the post-menopause.
Spurred by the finding that the incidence of drug-derived side effects is significantly higher in females with respect to males, a recent political address is to reinforce the analysis of sex and gender effect on human physiopathology: we believe that our studies anticipated significantly the vision of the necessity to better understand sex-specific physio-pathology and provided very important guide for these type of investigations.