Should doctors with commercial interests lead research on their products? Should we forget ‘conflicts’ and discuss ‘declarations of interest’ instead? Who should hold and maintain conflicts of interest registers for doctors? Should practicing doctors work with the pharma industry as well as serve on guideline committees? Should researchers with extensive financial interests be disqualified from studies of their own products?

The Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires US manufacturers to collect, track and report all financial relationships with clinicians and teaching hospitals. Professor Heneghan will discuss the failings with the current system of reporting of conflicts in medicine, what’s been tried so far, and why it is time for a UK Sunshine Act.

Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, employs evidence-based methods to research diagnostic reasoning, test accuracy and communicating diagnostic results to a wider audience.

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 and the MSc in EBHC Systematic Reviews. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

Warburg Memorial Lecture – Joint with BBOWT
Volunteer-based botanical monitoring has been a mainstay of British and Irish botany for decades, but only recently has a recording scheme for plant communities been established. Dr Pescott outlines the history of this new National Plant Monitoring Scheme, with a particular focus on the challenges and rewards that have been associated with establishing this novel approach in the UK.

Overdiagnosis is the diagnosis of “disease” that will never cause symptoms or death during a patient’s lifetime.

Recent results of the NELSON Lung Cancer Screening Trial reports reductions in lung-cancer survival but not overall survival – The desire to detect disease even earlier means Overdiagnosis is on the rise, however, the interpretation of screening trial results is problematic and often gives rise to significant uncertainties that go unanswered.

Carl Heneghan, Professor of Evidence-Based Medicine, employs evidence-based methods to research diagnostic reasoning, test accuracy and communicating diagnostic results to a wider audience.

This talk is being held as part of the Evidence-Based Diagnosis & Screening module which is part of the MSc in Evidence-Based Health Care and the MSc in EBHC Medical Statistics. Members of the public are welcome to attend.

In this book talk, Claas will review central findings of his research on the past 80 years of antibiotic use, resistance, and regulation in food production with introduction by Prof Mark Harrison, Director of Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities.

Mass-introduced after 1945, antibiotics helped revolutionise food production. Farmers and veterinarians used antibiotics to prevent and treat disease, protect plants, preserve food, and promote animals’ growth. Many soon became dependent on routine antibiotic use to sustain and increase production. The resulting growth of antibiotic infrastructures came at a price. Critics blamed antibiotics for leaving dangerous residues in food, enabling bad animal welfare, and selecting for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in bacteria, which could no longer be treated with antibiotics.

Pyrrhic Progress analyses over 80 years of evolving non-human antibiotic use on both sides of the Atlantic and introduces readers to the historical and current complexities of antibiotic stewardship in a time of rising AMR.

This talk includes a drinks reception and nibbles, all welcome

A talk from Homeless Oxfordshire about how they strive to be effective and appropriately challenge perceptions, how they are responsive to need and compassion to fellow human beings, and brave enough not to give up on people that society has left behind. This talk is free and open to all.

This talk is delivered by Mackenzie Aspell. Mackenzie is a Senior Fundraiser at Homeless Oxfordshire who believes advocacy to be the most powerful tool for change. Mackenzie also has a background working with mental health charities.

In modern high-tech health care, patients appear to be the stumbling block.

Uninformed, anxious, noncompliant individuals with unhealthy lifestyles who demand treatments advertised by celebrities and insist on unnecessary but expensive diagnostics may eventually turn into plaintiffs. But what about their physicians? About ten years ago, Muir Gray and Gerd Gigerenzer published a book with the subtitle “Envisioning health care 2020”. They listed “seven sins” of health care systems then, one of which was health professionals’ stunning lack of risk literacy. Many were not exactly sure what a false-positive rate was, or what overdiagnosis and survival rates mean, and they were unable to evaluate articles in their own field. As a consequence, the ideals of informed consent and shared decision-making remain a pipedream – both doctors and patients are habitually misled by biased information in health brochures and advertisements. At the same time, the risk literacy problem is one of the few in health care that actually have a known solution. A quick cure is to teach efficient risk communication that fosters transparency as opposed to confusion, both in medical school and in CME. It can be done with 4th graders, so it should work with doctors, too.

Now, in 2020, can every doctor understand health statistics? In this talk, Gerd Gigerenzer will describe the efforts towards this goal, a few successes, but also the steadfast forces that undermine doctors’ ability to understand and act on evidence. Moreover, the last decade has seen two new forces that distract from solving the problem. The first is the promise of digital technology, from diagnostic AI systems to big data analytics, which consumes much of the attention. Digital technology is of little help if doctors do not understand it. Second, our efforts to make patients competent and to encourage them to articulate their values are now in conflict with the new paternalistic view that patients just need to be nudged into better behaviour.

This talk will be followed by a drinks reception, all welcome

Joint event with: The Oxford–Berlin Research Partnership

Beacons of the Past is a three and a half year project part funded by National Lottery Heritage Fund, the Chiltern Society, and the National Trust , amongst others. Its purpose is to engage and inspire communities to discover, conserve, and enjoy the Chilterns’ Iron Age hillforts and their prehistoric chalk landscapes. Now at the project’s midpoint, Project Manager Wendy Morrison will present on the some of the results of the UK’s largest bespoke archaeological LiDAR survey, the project’s outreach programmes, and what comes next.

Dr Wendy Morrison currently works for the Chilterns Conservation Board as Project Manager of the HLF funded Beacons of the Past Hillforts project. She also is Senior Associate Tutor for Archaeology at the Oxford University Dept for Continuing Education. Wendy’s research areas are Prehistoric European Archaeology and Landscape Archaeology. She has over a decade’s excavation experience in Southern Britain, the Channel Islands, and India.

The AAAHS organises monthly lectures by acknowledged authorities on topics related to history and archaeology and to those of Abingdon in particular.
Visitors are very welcome to attend meetings at a cost of £3.

A talk on underground in the Roman town of Herculaneum

With the UK population predicted to grow nearly 20% by 2050 (circa 77 million people), over 65s making up around 25% of the population and more and more demands being put on the healthcare system what does the future hold?

Professor Chris Whitty, England’s Chief Medical Officer, will discuss predictions for the future advancement of healthcare in the UK and how these advancements will monitor, diagnose and treat us and how this will change our healthcare system.

Part of the Oxford Martin School Lecture Series: ‘Shaping the future’

We speak of earthquakes, floods, and fires as wild and untameable disasters – natural phenomena that spring unexpectedly from a hostile landscape and challenge our trust in the safety of our homes. But Ilan Kelman states otherwise. Join him as he challenges the inevitability of these disasters, suggesting that human decisions to build on flood plains, deforest territories, and impose upon the environment for social, political or economic reasons create or exacerbate these disasters. And he has some suggestions on how we can and should act to stop people suffering when nature unleashes its powers.

Ilan Kelman is Professor of Disasters and Health at University College London and a Professor at the University of Agder, Kristiansand in Norway. His overall research interest is linking disasters and health, including the integration of climate change into disaster research and health research. Suitable for ages 14+

Twitter @IlanKelman

Snakebite is arguably the world’s biggest hidden health crisis. It kills some 120,000 people every year, mostly from the world’s poorest communities in rural Africa, Asia and South America. The burden of death and disability is equivalent to that of prostate cancer or cervical cancer and greater than that of any other neglected tropical disease. Yet the problem is solvable – we need to bring snakebite treatment into the 21st century; we need innovative approaches to discovering and developing next generation snakebite treatments; and we need to build and importantly, sustain snakebite as a global health priority.

Dr Nick Cammack was appointed to the Wellcome Trust in September 2019 to lead an ambitious new £80 million programme aimed at driving a step-change in snakebite treatment around the world. The goal is to achieve a 50% reduction in mortality by 2030. In addition there is a pressing need to modernise the production of anti-venoms and improve their means of delivery.

Talk, followed by walking tour of the park. Jane Kilsby, local historian shares her
recent research into this well-loved 19th century public park. Maximum 20

The Scythians were warlike nomadic horsemen who roamed the steppe of Asia in the first millennium BC. Using archaeological finds from burials and texts, Barry Cunliffe reconstructs the lives of the Scythians, exploring their beliefs, burial practices, love of fighting and their flexible attitude to gender.

The Scythians: Nomad Warriors of the Steppe
Wed 18 Mar, 1–2pm
A weekday talk with Barry Cunliffe, Emeritus Professor of European Archaeology, University of Oxford

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-scythians-nomad-warriors-of-the-steppe

The Phoenicians were famously great traders who, from their base in modern-day Lebanon, traded their wares around the Mediterranean and beyond. Learn about their culture, art, achievements, and cities at home in the Levant and abroad, including Byblos, Tyre, Eshmoun and Carthage.

The Phoenicians Phoenicia Part 1: the Land of the Phoenicians
An Afternoon Tea Talk (with tea and biscuits included)
With Linda Farrar, Archaeologist and Lecturer

Thu 19 Mar, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-phoenicians-part-i-the-land-of-phoenicians

Moran’s ‘Autumn Afternoon, the Wissahickon’ pictures 19th-century America at its most bucolic and pastoral. It was painted, however, amidst a conflict that threatened to tear the young country apart. Examine Moran’s landscape as an allegory of contested national identity.

A Nation at a Crossroads: The United States in Thomas Moran’s ‘Autumn Afternoon, The Wissahickon’
A weekend talk with Madeleine Harrison, PhD Candidate, The Courtauld Institute of Art

Sat 21 Mar, 11–12pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/a-nation-at-a-crossroads-the-united-state-in-thomas-morans-autumn-afternoon-the-wissahickon

Learn about the vast trade network of the Phoenicians, the goods traded and their trading partners, who included the Greeks and Etruscans, as well as people in Sardinia and southern Spain.

The Phoenicians Phoenicia Part 2: The Phoenicians in the West
An Afternoon Tea Talk (tea and biscuits included)
With Linda Farrar, Archaeologist and Lecturer

Thu 26 Mar, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Booking essential.
Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/the-phoenicians-phoenicia-part-ii-the-phoenicians-in-the-west

Adults make choices regarding the technology they use to self-manage their health and wellbeing, and these technologies are often adopted, used and abused in ways that researchers, manufacturers, and clinicians have not accounted for. This talk will give an overview of human-computer interaction qualitative research on the real world use of mobile technologies in people’s everyday lives. Accounting for individual health and wellbeing choices adults make with technology, supporting choices through end user customisation, and the emerging trend towards Do-It-Yourself open-source health and wellbeing technology will be discussed. Examples of pragmatic qualitative studies will be given from research on wearables, apps, and standalone devices used for Type 1 diabetes, hearing loss, baby monitoring, and physical fitness.

Dr Aisling O’Kane is a Senior Lecturer in Human-Computer Interaction for Health and Deputy Director of the EPSRC CDT in Digital Health and Care at the University of Bristol. As a member of the Bristol Interaction Group and the Digital Health Engineering Group, she uses a pragmatic approach to qualitative research of health, wellbeing and care technologies. Dr O’Kane is currently PI of Innovate UK Machine Learning for Diabetes, co-designing AI to support diabetes self-management and Co-I of EPSRC SPHERE Next Steps, co-designing smart home technology to support health at home.

This talk is being held as part of the Advanced Qualitative Research Methods course which is part of the Evidence-Based Health Care Programme. This is a free event and members of the public are welcome to attend.

How the Freshwater Habitats Trust’s ‘Saving Oxford’s Wetland Wildlife’ project is helping to improve and monitor Oxford’s valuable freshwater areas, and protect the species they support.

The city of Hereford stands a couple of hours from Oxford along one of the most scenic train rides in England. Follow the Medieval Pilgrim trail, discovering a landscape alive with holy wells, sacred shrines, ancient mysteries and miraculous saints.

Become a Medieval Tourist: Herefordshire Pilgrimages
With Tim Porter, Historian

Wed 15 Apr, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
Includes a break for tea and biscuits
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/become-a-medieval-tourist-herefordshire-pilgrimages

Just an hour by train, discover one of the great lost buildings of England, an ancient centre of pilgrimage and scholarship. Discover what unique artworks and architectural gems survive within the townscape and further afield.

Become a Medieval Tourist: Evesham Abbey
An Afternoon Tea Talk (including tea and biscuits)
With Tim Porter, Historian

Thu 30 Apr, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre

Tickets are: £12 (Full Price) / £11 (Concession) / £10 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/become-a-medieval-tourist-evesham-abbey

Using images and eye-witness accounts, David Stuttard paints a vivid picture of the classical Greek Games – a thousand years of speed trials, brawn and horsemanship underpinned by religious ritual, lavish feasting, political chicanery and (of course) athletic nudity.

Games for Zeus: The Ancient Greek Olympics
Sat 2 May, 2–3pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre
With David Stuttard, Classical Historian and Author

Tickets are: £8 (Full Price) / £7 (Concession) / £6 (Members)
https://www.ashmolean.org/event/games-for-zeus-the-ancient-greek-olympics

In recent years there have been some alarming media stories about declines in insect populations. This talk provides an overview of trends in British insect populations over the past four decades.

Identification, ecology and conservation of amphibians found in Oxfordshire.

To enhance our natural environment, we need to put the environment
back into the heart of the economy. Using natural capital as the
guiding principle, we can leave a better environment for future
generations, implementing a bold 25 year environment plan, thereby
restoring rivers, greening agriculture, putting nature back into towns
and cities, and restoring the uplands and our marine ecosystems. We
can put the carbon back into the soils, encourage natural carbon
sequestration, rebuild our biodiversity and improve our mental and
physical health. This is the prize – a Green and Prosperous Land – and
it is much more economically efficient than the dismal proposed of
business-as-usual and allowing the declines of the last century to
continue.

Tea/coffee, biscuits on arrival in the Committee Room. Introductory talk from Sophie Huxley, Gardener, LMH, followed by tour of the garden. Parking for 5 cars only (priority to Blue Card holders). Maximum 20 persons

Friday 23 October

Lecture by Advolly Richmond. Thomas Birch was a trained botanist, and
head gardener at Orwell Park, Ipswich, before travelling to the Gold Coast.
He became part of the international network of correspondents and plant
collectors relied upon by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. This talk aims to
reveal the true extent of Birch Freeman’s horticultural and botanical legacy.
Pay at the
door: £5 (members) £8 (guests

Join Professor Chas Bountra, Professor of Translational Medicine and Professor Sir Charles Godfray as they discuss how the healthcare system has had to adapt due to the Covid-19 pandemic and what this means in the future.

With COVID-19 vaccines on the horizon, attention again returns to the contentious topic of whether vaccination should be made mandatory.

Recent polling has resulted in worrying headlines about a lack of willingness to have a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available.

Are mandates the answer to ensure vaccine high uptake to end the pandemic? While still a hypothetical scenario, without yet having a safe and effective vaccine approved for use, this could change in the coming months. The question of introducing mandatory vaccination spans considerations of personal liberty, health decision-making, public health and policy, as well as the relationship between the state and its citizens. Join Professor Julian Savulescu and Dr Samantha Vanderslott to debate the ethical and public policy arguments for and against mandatory COVID-19 vaccination.

On the 30th November it was announced that the Artificial Intelligence computer programme AlphaFold had made a decisive breakthrough in the determination of the 3-D structures of proteins.

The announcement was immediately hailed as one of the major scientific advances of the decade.

Why is it important to understand the 3-D structures of protein, why are they difficult to construct, and what is the nature of AlphaFold’s advance? Why is this so exciting and what further advances in medicine and the other biosciences may result? To find out, join a conversation between Yvonne Jones, Director, Cancer Research UK Receptor Structure Research Group and Charles Godfray, Director, Oxford Martin School, who will explore these fascinating issues.

Join us on Facebook and find out when and where the magnificent specimen of the Ichthyosaur was discovered in Abingdon. Local Archaeologist Jeff Wallis talks about his find with Palaeobiologist Megan Jacobs.
The find originally classified as Ophthalmosaurus is questioned by Megan in her doctoral paper, join them to see the story develop…
There will be three sessions throughout Saturday 24th July, followed by a Q&A session:

11am Part one – Discovering the Ichthyosaur
12pm Part two – Illustration and colour?
1pm Part three – The classification
These sessions will be streamed on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/abingdonmuseum

2pm – Live Q&A with Megan (Zoom)
Please visit abingdonmuseum.com to get the link to join the Zoom meeting.