NIH Addresses Gender Bias in Preclinical Studies

May 15, 2014 | In a joint publication, Janine Clayton, Director of the NIH Office of Research on Women's Health, and NIH Director Francis Collins have announced changes to the NIH grant application process to reduce the bias toward studying male cells and animals in preclinical research. The centerpiece of the new policies, which will begin to take effect this October, will be a requirement that grant applicants disclose the ratio of male to female cells and animals they plan to use. In their statement, Clayton and Collins discuss the potential harms of gender bias in cell and animal models, and the reasons that a male bias has persisted in early research despite regulations that have successfully tackled a similar problem at the stage of clinical studies. Nature