AUTHOR=Manica Daniela Tonelli , Asensi Karina Dutra , Mazzarelli Gaia , Tura Bernardo , Barata Germana , Goldenberg Regina Coeli Santos 

TITLE=Gender bias and menstrual blood in stem cell research: A review of pubmed articles (2008–2020)

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Genetics

VOLUME=Volume 13 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2022.957164

DOI=10.3389/fgene.2022.957164

ISSN=1664-8021

ABSTRACT=Despite proven scientific quality of menstrual blood mesenchymal cells, research and science output using those cells is still incipient, which suggests there is a resistance to the study of this type of cell by scientists, and a lack of attention to its potential to cell therapy, regenerative medicine and bioengineering.. This study analyzes the literature of the menstrual blood mesenchymal stromal/stem cells (mbMSC) at PubMed database between 2008 – 2020 and the social attention it received on Twitter. A comparative analysis showed that mbMSC has a very small space within mesenchymal cells research (0.25%). Most first authors are women (53.2%), whereas most last authors are men (63.74%), reinforcing an already known, and still significant, gender gap between last and corresponding authors. Menstrual blood tends to be less used in experiments and its scientific value tends to be underestimated, which brings gender bias to a technical and molecular level. Although women are more positive in the mbMSC debate on Twitter, communication efforts toward visibility and public interest in menstrual cells has room to grow.