A growing middle class in the developing world, as well as increasing concerns about the healthfulness, environmental footprint and inhumaneness of conventional livestock production have given rise to neo-Malthusian concerns about how to address what seems insatiable demand for protein.

While some have doubled down on calls for reducing meat consumption, so far the most visible response has been a huge wave of innovation in a variety of what are now being called “alternative proteins.” Designed to capture the “flexitarian” market, these include insect-based foods, protein-rich “superfoods,” simulated plant-based meat and dairy substitutes, and cellular/bioengineered meat.

Their rapid development begs two crucial questions, however. How did protein become the macronutrient of concern to begin? Will protein’s new substantiations be any more nutritious and ecological than that which it substitutes? In this talk, Guthman will elaborate on what is being done in the name of protein and provide provisional answers to these questions.

Please register via the link provided.

Some 45,000 years ago, a group of around 1500 humans who were genetically similar left Africa for Asia. Successive generations of their descendants were the first members of H.sapiens to explore the earth, apart from Australia – the ancestors of today’s indigenous population left Africa around 10,000 years earlier. The talk will discuss how that original group became the genetically diverse mix of peoples who now inhabit our world. Perhaps surprisingly, some of the key evidence on the limitations of our differences today is to be found in the Pitt Rivers Museum.

The logic and principles behind the drive for evidence-based health care are so compelling that often the limitations of evidence go unacknowledged. Despite a strong evidence base demonstrating the health risks associated with higher body weights, and health professionals routinely instructing patients to lose weight to improve their health, the incidence of obesity is predicted to continue to rise. Calling on his research into the relationships between obesity, inequality and health, Oli Williams – a fellow of The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute – will argue that when it comes to reducing the burden on, and improving, health care a more critical approach to the way we generate, select, apply and communicate evidence is needed.

Oli Williams completed his PhD in the Department of Sociology at the University of Leicester. He was subsequently awarded the NIHR CLAHRC West Dan Hill Fellowship in Health Equity which he held at the University of Bath. He later re-joined the University of Leicester in the Department of Health Sciences working in the SAPPHIRE Group and is now based at King’s College London after being awarded a THIS Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship. His research focuses on health inequalities, the promotion of healthy lifestyles, obesity, weight stigma, equitable intervention and co-production. He co-founded the art collective Act With Love (AWL) to promote social change. The Weight of Expectation comic is one example of their work, view others at: www.actwithlove.co.uk In recognition of his work on weight stigma the British Science Association invited Oli to deliver the Margaret Mead Award Lecture for Social Sciences at the British Science Festival 2018.

This talk is being held as part of the 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.

Join us to learn about the progress being made in biomaterials, the next generation of innovative solutions that aim to tackle current health challenges, and what it takes to start your own venture. The event will feature talks from two prominent individuals, Dr Nick Skaer (CEO of Orthox) and Dr Nick Edwards (Co-Founder of MedInnovate and Chairman of Satie8). Dr Skaer has over 25 years’ experience in life science and materials research, and 14 years as a medtech CEO, raising over £18m. Dr Edwards has over 30 years’ experience in supporting pharmaceutical companies as ex- Global Lead of Accenture’s Pharmaceutical R&D business and current Chairman of Prescient Healthcare Group. He is a Founder of MedInnovate and an investor and supporter of life-science start-ups as well as current Chairman of Satie8.

There will be a networking & drinks reception after the event.

The event is free as always. Spots are limited, so get registered today on:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-next-generation-of-medical-devices-tickets-76955848013

This is an exclusive event brought to you by the SIU in partnership with the Oxford Pharmacology Society. The application of big data and genomics in healthcare is vast, with tremendous opportunities to revolutionise current methods of diagnosing and treating diseases. Although, patient specific data is a powerful tool that can accelerate the development and translation of novel drugs and therapeutics, there are limitations to overcome. This event will take a closer look at the role of industries, academics, clinicians and healthcare policy makers in encouraging the translation of ideas into real-world solutions and the challenges within each sector. To discuss this, we will be hosting Dr Jeffrey Barrett (CSO and Director of Genomics Plc), Dr Michelle van Velthoven (Sir David Cooksey Fellow in Healthcare Translation at the University of Oxford) and Dr Amitava Banerjee (Associate Professor in Clinical Data Science at University College London).
The event will be on the 20th November at 17h30pm – 19h00, in the Department of Pharmacology. There will be a free networking & drinks reception after the event.
The event is free as always. Spots are limited, so get registered today on https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/pharma-and-big-data-the-healthcare-revolution-tickets-80628276345

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.

What can dance tell us about human rights? What can hip hop say about equality and human dignity? Join an evening of dance and discussion to find out.

We’ll watch live dance that explores the theme of human rights, with performances from Blakely White-McGuire, Eliot Smith and Body Politic Dance. We’ll celebrate art’s power to challenge the social and political turmoil we face around the world today.

Hear a whole phD in just three minutes!
Can you understand a whole phD in just three minutes? Perhaps you are an Undergraduate or Masters student who is aiming for a future PhD?
Join Humanities and Social Sciences PhD students as we challenge them to boil down their whole PhD to just three minutes and one slide – in a way that makes sense to everyone!

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

Speaker: Dr Neil Armstrong (Stipendiary Lecturer in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Magdalen College)

This paper uses ethnographic material of NHS mental healthcare to raise some questions about autonomy, risk and personal and institutional responsibility.

My research investigates mental health. I am particularly interested in how the institutional setting shapes so much of mental healthcare. My research aims to find ways that we might improve healthcare institutions rather than just focussing on developing new healthcare interventions. I am also concerned with methodological questions: how anthropological work can be of clinical value, and how best to produce anthropological knowledge in an inclusive way.

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

Lecture by Jinny Blom who has created over 250 gardens and landscapes, Laurent-Perrier garden which gained a Gold at Chelsea. Artist in Residence for Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, she is author of The Thoughtful Gardener: An intelligent approach to garden design (2017). Pay at the door; registration not required.

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’

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.

This year’s Kenneth Kirkwood Memorial Lecture Day focuses on the always fascinating subject of death and last rites in different cultures. The day will consist of four very varied talks from a panel of eminent speakers, and will include a buffet lunch.

The talks are:

The Funeral Pyre: the Archetypal Death Rite from Ancient Greece to India Today, Dr Felix Padel, School of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford

Funeral Options: From Celebration to Ash Delivery, Professor Douglas Davies, Director of The Centre for Death and Life Studies at Durham University

Accra Coffins: Artefact, Art or Expensive Tourist Tat?, Professor Malcolm McLeod, Professor of African Studies at Glasgow University and former Keeper of Ethnography at the British Museum

Of Vultures, Dogs & Fire: A Zoroastrian End, Shahin Bekhradnia, Religious Affairs Spokesperson for the World Zoroastrian Organisation

Friends and students £25/ non-Friends £35 (Includes buffet lunch).

All the profits from this event will be added to the Kenneth Kirkwood Memorial Fund. The primary purpose of this fund is to support staff of the Pitt Rivers Museum to undertake travel associated with their work.

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

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.

Lecture by Linda Farrar, a freelance researcher, lecturer and author of Ancient Roman Gardens. The art of gardening has a long history, with gardens being used in most ancient cultures to enhance living areas, and even public spaces. We will look at examples from a range of ancient societies. Pay at the door or book online

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.

This is the first in a series of conversations that engage with the concept of Radical Hope and recent critical changes related to decoloniality at the Pitt Rivers Museum and in the wider sector.

This online conversation will address what it means for museums like the Pitt Rivers Museum to engage with the legacy of coloniality that lies at the root of its collecting and display practices. We will explore what possibilities might occur from thinking through the philosophical concept of Radical Hope together with local and global stakeholders, as a means for redress and a more pluriversal re-imagining of the future relevance of these museums. In this first conversation, staff at the Pitt Rivers Museum will reflect on recent changes to our permanent displays resulting from an ethical review at the Museum in recent years. We will focus on the recent removal of the Shuar tsantsa (shrunken heads) as part of our ongoing collaboration with colleagues from the Universidad de San Francisco in Quito. We will share new video material of the removal process and newly curated installations, and there will be opportunities for audience questions.

Speakers: Laura Van Broekhoven, Pitt Rivers Museum Director; Marina Patricia Ordoñez, Curator and researcher; Marina de Alarcon, Head of Collections; Jeremy Uden, Head of Conservation.

Lecture by Hanna Zembrzycka-Kisiel, Principal Major Applications Officer at
South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse Councils. Hanna uses the research
insights of her recent MA Thesis to explore the reality of poor urban design
and the benefits of green spaces in our living environments, drawing on local
and international urban design projects for inspiration. Book online or pay at the door.

The ethnographic museum is full. Clothes, objects and tools fill the walls and floors. But where is the love?
The three speakers take the exhibition ‘Losing Venus’ as their starting point to discuss how emotion, intimacy, care and love can be brought back into the ethnographic museum and radiate out from its collections.

This event will run on Zoom, and will be available to view after the event. A link to the event will be emailed to you via Eventbrite within 48 hours of the event starting.

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.

Lecture by Jane Owen, preceded by OGT’s Christmas drinks party.
Jane Owen, Founder Member of OGT, avid gardener, garden historian and
previously Deputy Editor of the Financial Times, gives us her personal take on
garden history – not to be missed! Doors open 6.30pm for wine or juice (inc), for lecture at 7pm. Book online or pay at the door.
door

An online discussion about Zimbabwean objects in the Pitt Rivers & their links with archaeology, music & heritage