Beyond one-size-fits-all: Precision medicine and novel technologies for sex- and gender-inclusive COVID-19 pandemic management

recision medicine (PM), a paradigm that seeks to understand and address interindividual differences in health and disease, including the differentiation of one's biological and environmental factors, has the potential to revolutionize healthcare. Sex and gender characteristics are among the most important determinants of health and need to be taken into consideration when designing strategies for pandemic management. Artificial intelligence–driven technologies play a crucial role in advancing PM by enabling the identification of biomedically relevant patterns from vast amounts of health data, leading to individually tailored preventative and restorative interventions. However, despite significant scientific advances in the field, most currently used biomedical AI technologies do not adequately account for sex and gender differences, resulting in potentially biased outcomes that can have far-reaching negative implications. The impact of biases during the pandemic in data collection, analysis, and deployment using AI-driven technologies is examined, focusing on how these biases can impact the health outcomes of vulnerable populations. Finally, a holistic and intersectional approach is outlined, which recognizes the importance of sex and gender differences in health and disease and integrates them into the design and utilization of biomedical AI technologies, crucially advancing PM and achieving equitable and effective healthcare outcomes and pandemic management.