Dr. Marianne Legato

Marianne J. Legato, MD, PhD (hon c), FACP, is an internationally-known academic physician, author and lecturer. She is a leader at the top of her field in gender-specific medicine, the science of how normal human function and the experience of the same diseases vary as a function of sex/gender.

Dr. Legato founded the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University in 1997, subsequently converting the program to the non-profit Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine. Her 1992 book written for the public about the differences between the experience of men and women with coronary artery disease won the American Heart Association’s Blakeslee Award and began her career in gender - specific medicine. She  edited the prize winning definitive text, Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine, now in its fourth edition. Her most recent work, The Plasticity of Sex, addresses issues of variation in human sexuality; it won the American Publishers’ Prose Award in 2021 (her second) for the best biomedical book published that year in the United States. Her many books for the general public serve to translate even the most complex science into intelligible prose for the lay reader.

Dr. Legato has spent her career at the forefront of medical advancements as a visionary and a pioneer in innovative concepts and medical breakthroughs.  Her recent interests include the sex-specific physiology of space medicine, artificial intelligence, the emerging science of epigenetics and the value, potential and limitations of precision medicine in the postgenomic era.

Books: Why Men Die First, Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, Eve's Rib: The Groundbreaking Guide to Women's Health, and Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine: Gender in the Genomic Era.