Statistics show clear differences in the population’s immune system according to sex: men are more susceptible to infections and cancers, while women have stronger immune responses, which translate, for example, into better responses to vaccines. Even so, with a more reactive immune system, the probability of the body attacking itself also increases, causing 80% of autoimmune disease development to occur in women.

In this context, understanding the aging of the immune system is key since, with age, the composition of immune cells changes and their protective functions deteriorate, causing a greater susceptibility to diseases. However, understanding how sex influences this profound transformation was not possible until now.

A new study by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC-CNS) published today in Nature Aging demonstrated, for the first time, that immunological aging follows different dynamics between men and women, identifying the cells and genes responsible for the process, and providing a molecular explanation for the differences that previously were only observed globally in the population.