Dr. Anna Ruggieri is virologist and senior researcher at Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) in Rome, Italy. Her main background is in RNA viruses-host interactions. Her area of expertise includes Hepatitis C virus and influenza A virus variability and antigenic characterization as well as molecular pathogenesis in vitro. She is now working in the Reference Center for Gender-Specific Medicine at ISS, leading projects on sex differences in protective antibody responses to the anti-viral vaccines in healthcare workers and studying the epigenetic and hormonal mechanisms involved. She is teaching courses for continuing education in medicine and for students of specialty schools of medicine. During the MOOD international workshop in Trento, she gave a fascinating presentation about "Gender and infectious diseases". Following this presentation, she was asked a few questions regarding sex-related factors and disease risk/surveillance by MOOD's Working Package 8 OpenGeoHub's communication experts.