Across the human genome, the major histocompatibility complex region on chromosome 6 harbors the largest number of genotype-phenotype associations identified to date. I will give an overview of some of the advances that have helped in the characterization of inherited DNA sequence variation across the region as well as the fine-mapping of MHC associations for a wide range of diseases.

On Wednesday of Week 2, we will be hosting Dr Joao Pedro Magalhaes who leads the Integrative Genomics of Aging Group at the Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool.

As usual, our talks cost £2 per entry, and are free for our members. Membership sign-ups available at the door!

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Talk abstract
Ageing is the major biomedical challenge of the 21st century, yet it remains largely mysterious, partly because the ageing process involves multiple genes and their interactions with each other and with the environment that remain poorly understood. Our work has focused on various high-throughput genomic approaches aimed at deciphering the genome and increasing our knowledge about how genes and pathways impact on ageing. Dietary manipulations of ageing are also of immense interest, which we have been studying using a combination of computational and experimental approaches in model organisms ranging from yeast to rats. Lastly, I will discuss our recent work in sequencing and analyzing the genome of the longest-lived mammal, the bowhead whale, to identify longevity assurance mechanisms.

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Speaker Profile

João Pedro graduated in Microbiology in Portugal. As a doctoral fellow, he studied the mechanisms of aging by joining the Aging and Stress Group at the University of Namur in Namur, Belgium. Fascinated by the genome and by the opportunities its sequencing opened, João Pedro then did a postdoc from 2004 to 2008 with genomics pioneer George Church at Harvard Medical School in Boston, USA. He developed high-throughput approaches for studying aging, including computational tools and databases, statistical models of mortality, and comparative genomics methods for investigating the evolution of longevity.

In 2008, he joined the Institute of Integrative Biology at the University of Liverpool as a Lecturer to develop his own group on genomic approaches to aging. “

As adults can tell us when they are feeling pain we can often simply ask them whether pain medication is working. As babies cannot talk, we need to rely on other measures to find out whether they are feeling pain. It is not always possible to know whether a baby is in pain by looking at their behaviour. Join us to hear Dr Rebeccah Slater, discuss whether the use of modern brain imaging techniques can tell us whether a baby can feel pain. This is particularly important for babies admitted to intensive care after birth who may need lots of medical interventions to be performed everyday as part of their essential medical care.

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This talk is being held as part of the Practice of Evidence-Based Health Care module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care. Members of the public are welcome to attend.
Carl Heneghan is Director of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine, a General Practitioner and Senior Tutor of Kellogg College.
Carl has been the author and principal investigator on the Cochrane reviews on Tamiflu in adults and children and for 6 years he has worked alongside an international Cochrane group to obtain the missing unpublished evidence. This work has proved controversial in questioning the £500 million spent by the UK stockpiling the drug and has led to parliamentary appearances and substantial news coverage. The talk will detail the journey to obtain the evidence, the new methods including the use of clinical study reports and the effect of the drug once all the evidence became available.

This book talk is a joint event between the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict

This book talk will see author Chris Woods discuss his new book Sudden Justice: America’s Secret Drone Wars, an exposé of the little-understood yet extremely significant world of drone warfare. His work is based on insights from many of those intimately involved – the pilots and analysts, US and UK intelligence officials, Special Forces and Pentagon commanders.

Chris Woods is an award-wining investigative journalist who specialises in conflict and national security issues. During almost a decade at the BBC, he was a senior producer for both Panorama and Newsnight.

The event will be introduced by Dr Alex Leveringhaus, a James Martin Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict and lead author of the recent Oxford Martin Policy Paper Robo-Wars: The Regulation of Robotic Weapons.

The book talk will be followed by a book signing, all welcome

This book talk will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdE9AJrZ_Fk

The next ‘Surgical Grand Rounds’ presentation at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences will be given by Professor Fergus Gleeson, Professor of Radiology and Consultant Radiologist at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

As part of this year’s community outreach program, Oxford Brookes University’s 150th anniversary, and as a way showing our appreciation to all participants, clinicians, researchers, members of the public and organisations that have supported our work, we will be holding an open day on Saturday, 30th of May 2015. Over the past decade, the Movement Science Group, which now falls within the Centre for Rehabilitation at Oxford Brookes University, has conducted extensive research on a variety of topics related to rehabilitation and physical activity. Topics include measuring and understanding movement in those with movement difficulties, exercising benefits in people with neurological conditions, and developing novel rehabilitation strategies.

Susan Jebb is a nutrition scientist who has spent more than 25 years studying the links between what we eat and the effect on our weight and risk of cardiovascular disease. Her research includes a mix of observational analyses from prospective cohorts, experimental studies and both controlled and more pragmatic dietary intervention studies.

In this talk she will consider how evidence from these diverse sources informs dietary recommendations. Drawing on her experience as a scientific advisor to the Department of Health on obesity and food policy and a raft of public engagement activities, including the recent Horizon series “What’s the right diet for you?” she will also consider how the scientific evidence is translated into policy and practice.

Join us at the Museum of Natural History for an evening of talks and networking to celebrate the research behind our new exhibition,‘Biosense’.
The exhibition features contemporary research, including how bacteria sense their micro-world, why oxygen sensing could revolutionise human medical treatment, and the way that the light around us affects our behaviour.

Professor Sir John Bell has been invited to Oxford Brookes to discuss the future of medicine and the role of the Oxford Academic Health Science Centre. His research interests are in the area of autoimmune disease and immunology where he has contributed to the understanding of immune activation in a range of autoimmune diseases. In 1993, he founded the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, one of the world’s leading centres for complex trait common disease genetics.

So many of us are desperately busy doing what’s immediately in front of us rather than the things that make a real difference.

Ben will tell the story of the GB men’s rowing 8+ in the build up to the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where they won the gold medal, and how they challenged everything to make the boat go faster. For Ben it was the culmination of nine years in the national team.

Ben’s story is a call to action, challenging you to examine how you spend your time in a way that ensures you are travelling in the direction that you want to go.

About the Speaker
Ben Hunt-David MBE
BEN HUNT-DAVIS MBE

Former Brookes student, Ben Hunt- Davis is a performance coach, speaker and author. Ben has been involved in five Olympic Games – three as a competitor and two as a member of the headquarters team. He was also Chairman of the Organising Committee for both the 2011 World Rowing Junior Championships and the 2013 Rowing World Cup. He now runs a performance consulting company helping companies to make their ‘boats go faster’. His first book is entitled Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?

The Psychology and Neuroscience Applications Society (PsyNAppS) is excited to bring you the biggest event on the neuroscience calendar!

Register here to attend our inaugural symposium for FREE: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/psynapps-inaugural-symposium-tickets-16983645541

The event boasts an exciting line up of speakers – guaranteeing something for everyone – held at the award-winning TS Eliot Theatre.

The speakers and talk topics list is as follows:

Dr. David Lewis: Founder of Mindlab on Neuromarketing
Dr. Adam Corner: Psychology of climate change communication
Dr. Rebecca Park (Oxford): Neuroscience and treatment of eating disorders
Mr. Stelios Kiosses: Challenges of treating compulsive hoarding

This free event will take place on the 11th of June at the TS Eliot Theatre of Merton College, located in Rose Lane gardens (accessible from either Merton College or directly from Rose Lane). Doors open at 3.45pm and there will be a drinks and canapes reception at 7pm.

The next Surgical Grand Rounds presentation at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences is a Burdette Lecture and will be given by Professor Sir Sabaratnam Arulkumaran, President of the British Medical Association, President of the International Federation of Gynaecology & Obstetrics, and Professor Emeritus of
Obstetrics & Gynaecology, St. George’s University, London.

Chaired by Professor Freddie Hamdy, Head of Department, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences.

The Surgical Grand Rounds are the key educational meetings for consultants, juniors and medical students. Presentations revolve around clinical cases and are followed by lively, educational discussion.

Evening with Sami Awad of the Holyland Trust http://www.holylandtrust.org
Monday 15th June – Impossible to Possible: what does nonviolence mean in Palestine today?
Palestinian Christian Sami Awad, the Executive Director of the Holy Land Trust will lead discussions about nonviolence and its role in bringing a just and lasting peace to all who live in the Holy Land.
Holy Land Trust exists to lead in creating an environment that fosters understanding, healing, transformation, and empowerment of individuals and communities, locally and globally, to address core challenges that are preventing the achievement of a true and just peace in the Holy Land.
6.30pm for 7.00pm start; Friends Meeting House, 43 St. Giles, Oxford.
“It is encouraging for us to know that people have realised that you can stand up for the human rights of the Palestinians without compromising the rights of Israelis to also live in peace. You do not have to pick a side. I invite you ..to continue praying for peace for both communities that live in what we all call the Holy Land.”
Sami Awad.
“We have to not only understand those people who are oppressing us, but try to walk in their shoes, and ultimately to really engage with what it means to follow Jesus’ call to love our enemies.”
Sami Awad.
Sami will be visiting the UK with the Amos Trust. As well as the event on 15th June, Sami will also give a sermon in St Giles Church on Sunday 14th June. These events contribute to the Oxford Palestine Unlocked festival (4th – 20th June) . More details on the website http://palestineunlocked.com and also http://www.amostrust.org

The Patient Safety Academy at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences are pleased to invite you to a seminar on current safety issues for senior management, led by Dr Ken Catchpole from Cedars Sinai Healthcare, Los Angeles. Dr Catchpole has won international recognition for his work on applying Human Factors to healthcare problems. He will deliver an initial assessment of key problems and potential solutions facing senior managers in Trusts in the NHS in England followed by a question and answer session.

Drinks and canapés will be provided. Places are limited, so please respond to this invitation if you would like to attend by 12 June 2015.

The next Surgical Grand Rounds presentation at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences will be given by Mr Nick Maynard and Dr Tom Macgregor, Consultant Upper GI Surgeon and Surgical SpR, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust.

Mr Nick Maynard will speak on ‘Medical Student Teaching in Palestine’ and Dr Tom MacGregor will talk about ‘The OxPals Initiative’.

Chaired by Professor Freddie Hamdy, Head of Department, Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences.

The Surgical Grand Rounds are the key educational meetings for consultants, juniors and medical students. Presentations revolve around clinical cases and are followed by lively, educational discussion.

This is a special workshop hosted by the Refugee Studies Centre as part of Oxford Refugee Week.

Programme:

Chair: Professor Dawn Chatty, Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration and former Director of the RSC

Speakers:
Dr Jeff Crisp, independent consultant, RSC Research Associate, and former Head of Policy Development & Evaluation at UNHCR

Dr Maria Kastrinou, Lecturer, Brunel University

Dr Sara Pantuliano, Director of Humanitarian Policy Group, Overseas Development Institute

Dr Patricia Sellick, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Trust, Peace & Social Relations, Coventry University

Professor Roger Zetter, Professor Emeritus of Refugee Studies, RSC

Since 2011, the on-going conflict in Syria has had an enduring and devastating impact. According to the latest inter-country report of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the humanitarian crisis has reached an unprecedented scale: 7.6 million people are internally displaced in Syria, while more than 3.9 million are seeking protection in neighbouring Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey.

Against the background of this unprecedented humanitarian crisis, what are Syrians’ aspirations for their futures? What kind of futures do they want to build? And what measures have EU Member States taken in response to the crisis?

This workshop will draw on ethnographic accounts from work directly with Syrian communities in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. The workshop will bring together experts and academics that have had direct fieldwork experience and can speak about the concerns, needs and aspirations of Syrians who have fled Syria.

This event is open to all. No registration is required.

A wine reception will follow afterward.

Two hour cycle ride with Max as he reveals some surprising facts about the science of cycling. Ride and demonstration.
Please show up 10 minutes before departure at The Story Museum. The ride will finish back at The Story Museum.

Author and cyclist Max Gaskin explores the science of cycling from hydrogen to helmets!
6.30pm – 7.30pm £8/£5 concessions

International table tennis player, broadcaster and writer, Matthew Syed will reflect on the psychology of performance.

“Understanding Trauma & PTSD within the context of the Treatment Room”

This is a CPD event for practitioners run by Morit Heitzler.

This talk will explore:

– The psycho-physiology of trauma (autonomic nervous system)

– Different types of trauma

– Disturbances to self-regulation in trauma

– Understanding dissociation as a body-mind process

– Brain function during and after trauma

– How re-traumatisation occurs and what we can do about it

– Trauma in the therapy room: basic principles of a body based approach

– The ‘safe place’ – establishing a container and working alliance

Recognising and dealing with secondary (vicarious) trauma

The talk will run from 6-8pm at Eau de Vie on Tuesday 30th June.

Places are £35.

B o o k i n g s

t: 01865 200678
e: info@eau-de-vie.co.uk

Professor Trish Greenhalgh will talk about how careful analysis of stories can help us rise above the ontological desert of ‘behaviour change’ research.

The AllTrials campaign calls for all past and present clinical trials to be registered and their full methods and summary results to be reported – half of all trials go unpublished. The AllTrials petition has been signed by 84,879 people and 574 organisations. A co-founder of the popular initiative, Professor Carl Heneghan will talk about how the campaign is making progress by leaps and bounds, and issues raised in the five years spent obtaining the unpublished evidence for Tamiflu, as well as the implications for health care and general practice in the future.

Carl Heneghan is Director of the Centre of Evidence-Based Medicine, a General Practitioner and Senior Tutor of Kellogg College. He is a clinical epidemiologist so studies patients who see clinicians, especially those with common problems. His work focuses on improving the evidence-base to change practice. His research includes the treatment of communicable diseases in primary care, including recent work on Tamiflu.

How can we use chocolate to understand the neurobiology of depression? Join us to hear Dr Ciara McCabe discuss how we investigate reward function in the human brain and how this is related to depression. Find out how this information can help explain why current medications might not be working and how, with neuroscience, we aim to develop better, targeted personalised treatments for depression.

A one-day free exhibit featuring powerful children’s drawings from Burma and Sudan.

The event is co-sponsored by Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART) and Waging Peace. The drawings from Burma were collected on visits by HART to their partners. HART works with these partners and others in conflict or post-conflict areas, often facing persecution and oppression and trapped behind closed borders. The areas in which HART’s partners work are often not reached by larger organisations and Government support.

The pictures from Sudan were collected by Waging Peace, from Darfuri children living in refugee camps in Chad. Waging Peace is a non-governmental organisation that campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights abuses and seeks the full implementation of international human rights treaties.

These drawings are commanding and moving, providing an insight into the lives and minds of children living in these contexts.

A lecture in aid of the British red Cross services in Oxfordshire and beyond kindly given by award winning journalist Peter Taylor and entitled ‘Terrorism from IRA to Al Quaeda and ISIL.’ In his lecture Peter will describe his 40 year journey from reporting the IRA to investigating Al Qaeda and, latterly, assessing the Islamic State. He will discuss how successful – or otherwise – governments and states have been in countering the threats and addressing their root causes.

Kellogg College along with the Centre for Evidence Based Medicine, the Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences and the Kellogg College Centre for Governance and Transparency will present a series of talks themed ‘Harms in Healthcare’ with guest speakers Ben Goldacre, Jeffrey Aronson, Carl Heneghan, and Kamal Mahtani.

Talks will cover self-interests and research, combined with increased global competition that are currently leading to substantial harms in healthcare. In addition, a growing body of research on adverse drug reactions has uncovered that there is considerable room for improvement in the public understanding of this little known area. We will question whether medicine is broken  – do patients and the public ever fully understand what doctors, academics and regulators have been permitted to do to them and what would their reaction be? We’ll also discuss the impact of a £500 million deficit in the public purse from stockpiling the controversial drug Tamiflu.

This event is part of the University of Oxford’s alumni weekend. The event is open to all, including members of the public.

In conjunction with The Angus Library and Archive’s exhibition, ‘Navigating the Congo’, Bandi Mbubi, will be joining us to speak about conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo and his work in demanding the development of fairtrade technology which uses conflict-free minerals.

Bandi Mbubi is a founder and director of Congo Calling, an organisation who are working to bring the world’s attention to the atrocities being committed in the Congo and for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing war. Bandi writes and speaks nationally and internationally to create a mass movement of consumers who demand the development of fair trade technology which uses ethically-sourced, conflict-free minerals from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The exhibition will be open to visitors before the talk from 1pm-5.30pm on 22nd September.

Conceptions of Enlightenment is a one-day conference concluding in a public lecture at 5pm. The lecture will be delivered by Dennis Rasmussen (Tufts University, Boston), author of The Pragmatic Enlightenment (CUP, 2014).

Over the last century, historians and philosophers have used the term ‘Enlightenment’ in diverse ways. Was it primarily a philosophical movement, or did it involve a much wider change of outlook and sensibility in the course of the eighteenth century? Did its origins and centre lie in England, the Netherlands, France, or Scotland? Did it establish the human rights and freedoms we now value, or did it in practice subject humanity to rigidly rational systems of control? Did it give a voice to women and colonial subjects, or did it reinforce male domination and European hegemony over the rest of the world? Did it prepare the way for the French Revolution and the Reign of terror, or is its heritage to be found in the American Declaration of Independence?

To discuss such questions, a number of leading scholars of the Enlightenment will introduce the work of some of the historians and philosophers who have been most influential in shaping this much-debated concept.