The rapid advances in medicine over the last 50 years have totally changed the outlook for children with disorders of sex development (DSD), but there is still much to learn. This book crystallizes the combined experience of a leading dedicated unit over 25 years in delivering expert medical and surgical care to children with DSD in a holistic environment. It documents the most recent advances in the molecular biology and embryology of sex development, and describes each disorder in detail. The clinical presentation and approach to diagnosis are described both for babies and for children presenting later in childhood or at adolescence. The chapters on management highlight all the latest knowledge and include the shared wisdom of the authors on current controversies, such as the timing of surgical treatment. Finally, the authors describe their short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes, which demonstrate the strengths of holistic team management.

It's obvious why only men develop prostate cancer and why only women get ovarian cancer. But it is not obvious why women are more likely to recover language ability after a stroke than men or why women are more apt to develop autoimmune diseases such as lupus. Sex differences in health throughout the lifespan have been documented. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health begins to snap the pieces of the puzzle into place so that this knowledge can be used to improve health for both sexes. From behavior and cognition to metabolism and response to chemicals and infectious organisms, this book explores the health impact of sex (being male or female, according to reproductive organs and chromosomes) and gender (one's sense of self as male or female in society). Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health discusses basic biochemical differences in the cells of males and females and health variability between the sexes from conception throughout life. The book identifies key research needs and opportunities and addresses barriers to research. Exploring the Biological Contributions to Human Health will be important to health policy makers, basic, applied, and clinical researchers, educators, providers, and journalists-while being very accessible to interested lay readers.

The text is organized into two parts. Firstly, it reviews the basic biology of sex determination and summarizes ground-breaking work in mouse, marsupial and Drosophila systems. Secondly, it covers current human genetics, clinical studies and the syndromes of abnormal sex differentiation.

The success of Assisted Reproductive Technology is critically dependent upon the use of well optimized protocols, based upon sound scientific reasoning, empirical observations and evidence of clinical efficacy. Recently, the treatment of infertility has experienced a revolution, with the routine adoption of increasingly specialized molecular biological techniques and advanced methods for the manipulation of gametes and embryos. This textbook – inspired by the postgraduate degree program at the University of Oxford – guides students through the multidisciplinary syllabus essential to ART laboratory practice, from basic culture techniques and micromanipulation to laboratory management and quality assurance, and from endocrinology to molecular biology and research methods. Written for all levels of IVF practitioners, reproductive biologists and technologists involved in human reproductive science, it can be used as a reference manual for all IVF labs and as a textbook by undergraduates, advanced students, scientists and professionals involved in gamete, embryo or stem cell biology.

This book examines the evolutionary lead taken by the matriline in providing the intergenerational co-adaptations required for successful pregnancy.

The field of genetics is rapidly evolving and new medical breakthroughs are occuring as a result of advances in knowledge of genetics. Advances in Genetics continually publishes important reviews of the broadest interest to geneticists and their colleagues in affiliated disciplines. - Nine chapters on the most advanced research on the differentiating behaviors among sexes - More than 300 pages of articles from leading international scientists, this volume offers genetic behaviorial information related to drosophila, mice, birds, voles, and mammals - Hot topics include sex differences in brain and behavior; genomic imprinting and the evolution of sex differences; gene regulation; peptide pheromone production and reception, and more

Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions Oliver Wendell Holmes Our current understanding of sex and biological differentiation results from the application of three principal experimental approaches to these subjects: those of the physiologist, the biochemist, and the geneticist. These three approaches are illustrated by the materials presented in the chapters of this volume. Chapters 1-5 emphasize conceptualization of developmental processes, describing systems principally from the standpoint of the physiologist. Structures and functions are defined with only occasional reference to specific molecular details. Chapters 6- 10 present the views of the biochemist, attempting to describe functions influ encing or regulating cellular behavior at the molecular level. And Chapters 11- 14 illustrate the approaches of the modem-day geneticist in his attempts to gain a detailed understanding of processes controlling gene expression. While it is possible to delineate these three major sections, each emphasizing a distinct experimental approach, it must be realized that the yield of knowledge increases exponentially with the number of experimental approaches available to the investigator. Information resulting from the application of each of these approaches must converge to give the same answers for anyone biological phenomenon in anyone experimental system. Further, if we can learn of details regarding a particular process by applying different experimental approaches, our postulates concerning the underlying molecular mechanisms are likely to be more accurate. But biological systems are not unrelated.