Some face-to-face events are returning. Check carefully for any requirements.
Please note: registration is required for this event.
Annual Harrell-Bond Lecture:
The communities comprising the modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan have a long history as refugee hosts. HRH Princess Basma bint Talal will examine the ways in which earlier refugee communities’ experience of displacement itself contributed to their integration within the developing Jordanian state. Princess Basma will discuss the ways in which Jordan’s Circassian, Chechen, and Armenian communities have negotiated different aspects of their specific identities and integrated in Jordan, considering the role of forced migration itself in creating identities.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
For nearly thirty years, Princess Basma has worked to promote a range of global issues, most notably in the areas of human development, gender equity and women’s empowerment, and the well-being and development of children. She is particularly involved with supporting the implementation of sustainable development programmes that address the social and economic needs of marginalised groups, including refugees.
Princess Basma is Honorary Human Development Ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). She is also a Global Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
Please book your place using the link provided. For all other enquiries, please contact:
Anneli Chambliss
Centre Administrator
+44 01865 281720
anneli.chambliss@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
Non-fat, low-fat, saturated fat, trans fats, healthy fats – in an era where we seem to be constantly bombarded with often conflicting messages about our diets, is all this information actually making us any healthier? How can we cut through media hysteria and make wise choices about the food we eat, and what impact do our consumption habits have, not just on our own health but that of the planet?
Speakers:
Professor Susan Jebb, Professor of Diet and Population Health, Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford
Dr Tara Garnett, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Dr Mike Rayner, Principal Investigator, Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food
Join in on Twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UbwkWsEdmU
About the Speakers:
Professor Susan Jebb is a nutrition scientist and her research interests are focused on how what we eat affects the risk of gaining weight or becoming obese and the interventions that might be effective to help people lose weight or reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases. She has also conducted a series of randomised controlled trials to study the impact of dietary changes on the risk factors for cardiovascular disease. In general, this work highlights that body weight is a more important risk factor for ill-health than differences in the nutritional composition of the diet. She has strong scientific collaborations with the Behaviour and Health Research unit at the University of Cambridge and the MRC Human Nutrition Research unit, where she was a Programme Leader for many years.
She is also very interested in how scientific evidence on diet is translated into policy and practice, by government, industry, the public health community and the media. She was the science advisor for the Foresight obesity report and subsequently chaired the cross-government Expert Advisory Group on obesity from 2007-11. She is now a member of the Public Health England Obesity Programme Board. She also Chairs the DH Public Health Responsibility Deal Food Network, developing voluntary agreements with industry to improve the food environment. She is one of the Chairs of the NICE Public Health Advisory Committees. She is actively involved in a number of events and media projects to engage the public in issues relating to diet and health. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to public health. She is a Trustee and former Chair of the Association for the Study of Obesity.
Dr Tara Garnett is a Principal Investigator at the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and she initiated, and runs the Food Climate Research Network, now based at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford.
Her work focuses on the contribution that the food system makes to greenhouse gas emissions and the scope for emissions reduction, looking at the technological options, at what could be achieved by changes in behaviour and how policies could help promote both these approaches. She is particularly interested in the relationship between emissions reduction objectives and other social and ethical concerns, particularly human health, livelihoods, and animal welfare. Much of her focus is on livestock, since this represents a nodal point where many of these issues converge.
Tara is keen to collaborate through the FCRN with other organisations to undertake research, organise events and build and extend interdisciplinary, intersectoral knowledge in this field.
Dr Mike Rayner is a Principal Investigator on the Oxford Martin Programme on the Future of Food and Director of the British Heart Foundation Centre on Population Approaches for NCD Prevention, which is based within the Nuffield Department of Population Health of the University of Oxford, and which he founded in 1993.
Mike’s particular research interests are in food labelling, food marketing, food taxes and the relationship between a healthy diet and sustainable diet.
Mike is also Chair of Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming in the UK, and Chair of its Childrens’ Food Campaign in the UK. He is a trustee of the UK Health Forum, Chair of the Nutrition Expert Group for the European Heart Network based in Brussels and a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the International Obesity Task Force. He is also an ordained priest in the Church of England.
Childhood in a New Age:
Adults Look at Children, Children Look at Themselves in Russia, 1890‒1920
With Professor Catriona Kelly, University of Oxford
Saturday 8 November, 11am–12pm
At the Ashmolean Museum – Lecture Theatre
During the late 19th and 20th centuries, the Russian Empire underwent a period of hectic change at every level. This talk, based on the literature and visual arts of the period, as well as journalism, family history and the writings of children, explores how the massive changes of the era affected the Empire’s youngest citizens.
Tickets are £5/£4 concessions and booking is recommended as places are limited.
Visit http://www.ashmolean.org/events/Lectures/?id=132
A free talk with Dr Adrian Gregory to coincide with our First World War Centenary Exhibition: For Liberty Against Tyranny.
Book essential, please check our website for further details.
A free talk with Professor Keith Robbins to coincide with our First World War centenary exhibition titled ‘For Liberty Against Tyranny’.
Booking essential, please check our website for further details.
Speaker: Professor Jonny Steinberg (African Studies Centre and the Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Jonny Steinberg is Associate Professor in African Criminology, African Studies Centre and Centre for Criminology, University of Oxford. He joined the African Studies Centre in October 2011. His time is divided between African Studies and the Centre for Criminology. For the African Studies MSc he convenes the second term of the Core Course on Themes in African History and Social Sciences, and offers an option called ‘Violence and Civilisation’, available both to African Studies and Criminology MSc students.
Much of his work explores South African people and institutions in the wake of the transition to democracy. The institutions he has written about are the police, the prison, the farm and the clinic. The common thread between these projects has been an investigation into how political transition has changed the filigrees of unwritten rules through which individuals understand their lives and relate to others. He has also, of late, worked beyond South Africa, on Liberia’s recent civil war, and some of the questions it has raised about migration, exile and transitional justice.
His latest book, A Man of Good Hope, to be published in January 2015, records the life history of a Somali man who fled Mogadishu as a child in 1991, grew up itinerant and unsettled in various east African countries, and finally made his way down Africa’s eastern seaboard to South Africa when he was in his early 20s. His story is a frame for exploring a range of African questions, from state collapse in Somalia, to the relationship between formal state institutions and undocumented people, to xenophobia in South Africa.
Light refreshments will be provided after the event.
What impact are government anti-terrorism actions having on our society? Our Panel Debate on the impact of anti-terrorism legislation in the UK is an event not to be missed for anyone interested in in this area of policy. With speakers including David Anderson QC, and Jonathan Russell (Political Liaison Officer at the Quilliam Foundation), this is should be an exciting and enlightening discussion on an incredibly divisive topic.
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
There remain many unanswered questions in medical research about both the prevention and treatment of disease, but new technologies are opening up new opportunities to provide insights. One approach, in particular, the capacity to assemble and analyse very large health datasets, is underpinning the work of both speakers addressing problems at both ends of life.
Kazem Rahimi is utilising innovative digital technologies and large healthcare datasets to find better approaches to managing established cardiovascular disease including heart failure. Terry Dwyer, on the other hand, is pooling data on one million mothers and babies to help uncover causes of childhood cancer – an area where, despite considerable effort, little progress has been made over recent decades.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yURabFdYHJY
About the speakers:
Professor Terry Dwyer is the Executive Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School and Professor of Epidemiology, University of Oxford.
Terry is a non-communicable disease epidemiologist with extensive experience in the conduct of cohort and case control studies. He was previously Director of the Menzies Research Institute, University of Tasmania, coordinating research projects including those on cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis, childhood asthma, and diabetes.
His work has focussed on infant and child health. His team’s research on Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and sleeping position was recognised by the NHMRC, Australia, as one of the most important contributions to medical research by Australia in the 20th Century. Much of this work was conducted on the 11,000 infants enrolled in the Tasmanian Infant Health Survey (TIHS) between 1988 and 1995 and was supported by funds from both NH&MRC and NIH.
He is currently playing a leading role in two large global cohort collaborations. The first involves a collaboration of birth cohorts in more than ten countries to obtain prospective evidence on the causes of childhood cancer. Little prospective data on this association has previously been available. This consortium, the International Childhood Cancer Cohort Consortium (14C), seeks to assemble data on approximately 1 million mothers and babies who will be followed through childhood. It has been supported financially by NCI, and currently Terry is working on this from IARC.
The second study is focused on following around 40,000 subjects who were first measured at school age and are now moving into their fourth and fifth decades. The CDAH study is one of six coborts in three countries contributing data to this consortium. This study seeks to estimate the separate effect of childhood physical and lifestyle characteristics on risk of major adult diseases such as type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. There have been many publications on this including one in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011.
Dr Kazem Rahimi, Associate Professor, is the Deputy Director of the George Institute for Global Health at the Oxford Martin School; James Martin Senior Fellow in Essential Healthcare at the University of Oxford and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford.
As the Deputy Director he leads the Essential Healthcare Programme, which aims to find practical and affordable solutions for the global health priorities of the world’s largest emerging economies, as well as the priorities of vulnerable or disadvantaged populations in established economies.
He graduated in medicine from the University of Leipzig in Germany with postgraduate training in cardiology and health services research in Leipzig, London and Oxford. Prior to joining the George Institute, in 2010, he was a Research Fellow at Oxford’s Clinical Trial Service and Epidemiological Studies Unit. His research interests include service delivery innovation in chronic disease prevention and management, large-scale complex intervention studies, and data-driven electronic decision support systems.
According to the Prison Reform Trust, 72 per cent of male and 70 per cent of female sentenced prisoners suffer from two or more mental health disorders while 20 per cent of prisoners have four of the five major mental health disorders.
Seena will be exploring the common mental health problems in prisoners and special populations of prisoners with particular health needs, including juveniles and prisoners from low and middle income countries.
Dr Seena Fazel will compare suicide risk in prisoners in England and Wales with other European countries and look at the risk factors for suicide and self-harm as well as discuss his proposals to reform prison healthcare.
About the speaker:
DR SEENA FAZEL, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow in Clinical Science, is an honorary consultant forensic psychiatrist. His research examines the relationship between mental illness, violent crime and the mental health of prisoners. He collaborates with the Karolinska Institute, Stockholm and the University of Oxford.
The Colloquium is a seminar series at Kellogg College, Oxford.
Poppy is a 2nd year DPhil student at the department of Oncology. She completed her BSc Biochemistry at the University of Southampton and did a ‘sandwich’ year at AstraZeneca working on pre-clinical cancer drugs which is where she became fascinated by cancer biology. Poppy is also Secretary of OxFEST which supports women in STEM.
Speakers: Professor Roger Zetter (Refugee Studies Centre) and Dr Nando Sigona (University of Birmingham)
Undocumented migration is a huge global phenomenon, yet little is known about the reality of life for those involved. Sans Papiers, by Roger Zetter, Nando Sigona and Alice Bloch, combines a contemporary account of the theoretical and policy debates with an in-depth exploration of the lived experiences of undocumented migrants in the UK from Zimbabwe, China, Brazil, Ukraine and Turkish Kurdistan. Built around their voices, the book provides a unique understanding of migratory processes, gendered experiences and migrant aspirations. In this talk, Roger Zetter and Nando Sigona will draw on their book to explore the ambiguities and contradictions of being an undocumented migrant, providing insights into personal experiences alongside analysis of wider policy issues.
Light refreshments will be provided after the event.
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
The next decade could see significant steps towards eradicating viruses which threaten the lives of millions of people worldwide. Major progress has been made towards a cure for hepatitis C, but at $84,000 for a course of treatment, will the cost of the drugs stand in the way of a global roll-out? And with the high cost and risks of toxicity and drug resistance making anti-retrovirals a less than ideal long-term solution for HIV patients, what breakthroughs are giving scientists hope in their efforts to find a cure for the virus?
Join in on Twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN7NwoOQP-s
About the speakers:
Dr John Frater is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School and a Clinical Research Fellow in The Nuffield Department of Medicine at the University of Oxford. John carried out his medical training at Cambridge University and the Royal London Hospital. He undertook a PhD at Imperial College, studying African strains of HIV and their susceptibility to treatment.
Following this he gained a MRC Clinician Scientist Award to work at Oxford University researching HIV evolution and strategies for HIV eradication. He is currently the scientific lead and co-chair of ‘CHERUB’, (Collaborative HIV Eradication of Reservoirs: UK BRC), an NIHR-supported collaboration dedicated to finding a cure for HIV infection. He also works as an Honorary Consultant Physician at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
Dr Ellie Barnes is a Principal Investigator in the Institute for Emerging Infections, Oxford Martin School; MRC Senior Clinical Fellow and Honorary Consultant in Hepatology in the Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford.
Ellie trained in medicine at St. Bartholomew’s hospital, London. Towards the end of her time there she took a year away to study human evolution, social biology and the philosophy of science at University College London. She specialized in liver medicine, attracted to this by the mix of practical and academic skills required. Her PhD was in T cell immunity to hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the context of therapy with Paul Klenerman and Geoff Dusheiko. She has been supported by the MRC (UK) throughout, more recently as a Clinician Scientist at the Peter Medawar Building for pathogen research in Oxford.
Public Seminar: Thinking About the Brain
With speakers: Professor Chris Kennard; Professor Glyn Humphreys; Professor David Lomas; Dr Joshua Hordern; Dr Ayoush Lazikani; Dr Matthew Broome; Dr Chrystalina Antoniades
Thursday 20 November, 5.30-8.30pm
Ashmolean Education Centre
The evening will offer an opportunity to explore current research into the brain and the mind from a wide range of perspectives, from medieval literature to contemporary art and neuroscience.
Thinking About the Brain is a public seminar, forming part of the developing collaboration between the Ashmolean Museum’s University Engagement Programme and Oxford’s Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences. It is being co-organised by Dr Jim Harris, Andrew W Mellon Foundation Teaching Curator at the Ashmolean, and Dr Chrystalina Antoniades, Lecturer in Medicine at Brasenose College and Senior Research Fellow in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences.
Open to all and free of charge. To ensure a place, please follow this link to e-mail Dr Jim Harris (at jim.harris @ ashmus.ox.ac.uk), or telephone 01865 288 287.
When Labour started privatising the NHS a decade ago, one voice was clearer than all others in warning where this road would end: Professor Allyson Pollock.
Now that the Tories and Lib Dems are finishing off the job, Professor Pollock is leading the movement to save our most treasured institution, which was the envy of most of the world.
Come and hear her explain how they are selling off our NHS, and find out what you can do to help save it.
RSC Public Seminar Series:
Speaker: Dr Katy Long (Stanford University and University of Edinburgh)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Katy Long is Lecturer in International Development at the University of Edinburgh, where her work focuses on migration and refugee issues. In addition, she researches the sale of citizenship in both legal and black market contexts at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. She is also a former RSC Research Associate and post-doctoral fellow.
Dr Long received her doctorate from Cambridge in 2009, and afterwards worked as a post-doctoral fellow at the Refugee Studies Centre in Oxford and as a lecturer at the London School of Economics, before joining the department in September 2013. She has also worked extensively with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees on a number of projects, including investigating the role migration could play in solving refugee crises, the use of voluntary repatriation and refugees’ political participation, and emergency responses to border closures.
To date, her research has looked in particular at refugee movements and international “solutions” to forced migration crises. Most recently, her fieldwork has focused on migrations from and crises in the East, Horn and Great Lakes regions of Africa, but she’s also worked in Guatemala and Mexico and is increasingly interested in understanding immigration policy here in the West.
Light refreshments will be provided after the event.
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
Professor Chas Bountra and Dr Javier Lezaun take a fresh look at the way we organise early-stage (high-risk/high-reward) pharmaceutical research.
The drug discovery process is extremely high risk, takes too long and is becoming unaffordable. The pharmaceutical industry, despite massive investments, has been forced to reduce risk and costs. With ageing societies and the rise of chronic diseases of modern living, we desperately need better therapeutics. Professor Chas Bountra and Dr Javier Lezaun will examine alternatives to the traditional way of doing things, and propose a radical solution – arguably the only way to resolve this dilemma.
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oamayzlviAM
About the speakers:
Professor Chas Bountra is Professor of Translational Medicine in the Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine; Associate Member of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Oxford and Chief Scientist at the SGC (Structural Genomics Consortium). He is also a Visiting Professor in Neuroscience and Mental Health at Imperial College, London. Chas is an invited expert on several government and charitable research funding bodies, and an advisor for many academic, biotech and pharma drug discovery programmes.
His current research is aimed at determining the 3D X ray structures of novel proteins, generating novel small molecule inhibitors, using these to dissect disease networks and hence identifying new targets for drug discovery.
Chas is an advocate for pre-competitive science, up to and including Phase IIa clinical studies. The SGC publishes all findings immediately (more than one per week), works closely with over 100 academic labs across the world and 8 pharmaceutical companies, and shares all reagents and expertise freely.
Chas has worked in the pharmaceutical industry, and has experience of all stages of discovery and development. He was involved in the launch of Alosetron for the treatment of IBS, has progressed more than 30 clinical candidates, many of these into Phase II studies and 5 into Phase III studies. His therapeutic expertise is in neuro-psychiatric, gastro-intestinal (GI) and inflammatory diseases.
Dr Javier Lezaun is James Martin Lecturer in Science and Technology Governance, and Deputy Director of the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, Oxford Martin School. Javier received a PhD in Science and Technology Studies from Cornell University, and before coming to Oxford faculty he held positions at the London School of Economics and Amherst College. Javier is a Fellow at Kellogg College.
Javier directs the BioProperty research programme, an initiative funded by the European Research Council to examine the role of property rights in biomedical research and explore the value of open innovation models in pharmaceutical R&D. He is currently investigating the organisation and governance of pre-competitive R&D against neglected tropical diseases, and the role of IP regimes in the evolution of stem cell biology, synthetic biology, and the development of transgenic organisms.
C.R.W. Nevinson in the 21st Century
With Jan Cox, art historian
Friday 28 November, 2–3pm
At the Ashmolean Museum
Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson (1889‒1946) was one of the most famous British war artists working during the First World War. Art historian Jan Cox examines the way that Nevinson, also a renowned etcher and lithographer, has been depicted more recently in television programmes and books.
Tickets are £5/£4 concessions and booking is recommended as places are limited.
Visit: http://www.ashmolean.org/events/Lectures/?id=132
RSC Public Seminar Series
Speaker: Professor Audrey Macklin (University of Toronto)
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Audrey Macklin is Professor and Chair in Human Rights Law at the University of Toronto. She holds law degrees from Yale and Toronto, and a bachelor of science degree from Alberta. After graduating from Toronto, she served as law clerk to Mme Justice Bertha Wilson at the Supreme Court of Canada. She was appointed to the faculty of Dalhousie Law School in 1991, promoted to Associate Professor 1998, moved to the University of Toronto in 2000, and became a full professor in 2009. While teaching at Dalhousie, she also served as a member of the Immigration and Refugee Board.
Professor Macklin’s teaching areas include criminal law, administrative law, and immigration and refugee law. Her research and writing interests include transnational migration, citizenship, forced migration, feminist and cultural analysis, and human rights. She has published on these subjects in journals such as Refugeand Canadian Woman Studies, and in collections of essays such as The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill and Engendering Forced Migration.
Light refreshments will be served after the event.
Michaelmas Term 2014 Seminar Series
‘FERTILITY, REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT’
Thursdays – 12:30 – 14:00
Seminar Room, Oxford Institute of Population Ageing,
66 Banbury Road, Oxford, OX2 6PR.
Convener: Dr Melanie Frost
Vaccines have saved an estimated 500 million lives around the world since Edward Jenner discovered how to prevent smallpox infection in 1796. But a successful vaccine roll-out is about more than just medicine; it encompasses engineering, economics, policy, government and even transport infrastructure. More than a decade into the 21st century, and with a new outbreak of the Ebola virus claiming thousands of lives in Africa, does a successful strategy for creating and delivering new vaccines require a whole new approach?
Speakers:
Professor Susan Lea, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines
Professor Christoph Tang, Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines
Professor Jeffrey Almond, Former Vice President and Head of Discovery Research and External R&D at Sanofi Pasteur
Dr Ian Feavers, Head of the Division of Bacteriology, National Institute for Biological Standards and Control (NIBSC)
Join in on twitter with #c21health
This seminar will be live webcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCCbW5DHdN0
About the speakers:
Professor Susan Lea is Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines; Oxford University Statutory Chair of Microbiology and Professorial Fellow at Wadham College.
Susan is primarily interested in what structural biology can help us understand about the way in which pathogens and their hosts first encounter each other. More recently this work has led to potential therapeutic opportunities with structures suggesting opportunities for novel vaccination strategies.
Professor Christoph Tang is Co-Director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Vaccines and the Glaxo Professor of Cellular Pathology at the William Dunn School of Pathology, University of Oxford.
His group studies the pathogenesis and prevention of disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis and Shigella flexneri, particularly during interactions with the host innate immune system.
He was previously an MRC Clinician Scientist at the University of Oxford, and completed his PhD at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School on the identification of virulence factors in the fungal pathogen, Aspergillus fumigates. Christoph originally trained in medicine at the University of Liverpool and spent two years working in The Gambia, West Africa.
Professor Jeffrey Almond Former Vice President and Head of Discovery Research and External R&D at Sanofi Pasteur and Visiting Fellow at the William School of Pathology, University of Oxford.
He was lecturer at the University of Leicester from 1979-85 and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Reading 1985-99. He has published extensively, especially in the field of Virology.
His scientific contributions include the first demonstration that a single gene can determine host range – a finding highly relevant to understanding evolution of new pandemic strains; completion of the genetic map of an avian influenza virus, and the first detailed description of the proteins of Influenza B virus. He has also made major contributions to our understanding of polio virus and its vaccines.
In 1985 as a young academic Almond won the Fleming Award for outstanding contribution to microbiological research by a young microbiologist in the UK and the pace and extent of his contributions have not diminished. In his previous role he was responsible for the scientific rationale underpinning approximately 30 vaccine projects covering viruses, bacteria and eukaryotic parasites.
During the BSE crisis he served as coordinator of the BBSRC’s Research programme on the Spongiform Encephalopathies and was a member of the Government’s Spongiform Encephalopathies Advisory Committee (SEAC). He is an Elected fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and in 1999 was awarded the Ivanovsky Medal for “Contributions to the Development of Virology” by The Scientific Council of Virology of Russian Academy of Medical Sciences
Dr Ian Feavers PhD, is Head of the Division of Bacteriology at the NIBSC, UK. He studied for his PhD at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, eventually moving to NIBSC after periods of postdoctoral research at the University of Sheffield and the Friedrich Miescher Institut in Basel.
During the late 1990s, when new conjugate vaccines were being introduced, he headed the laboratory responsible for the control and standardisation of meningococcal and pneumococcal vaccines. Ian continues to oversee an active research programme on the molecular genetics and immunology of meningococcal and pneumococcal antigens.
Because of his broad experience of bacterial vaccines and molecular biology, he has been closely involved with a number of meningococcal vaccine developments. He regularly contributes to WHO and EU guidelines, serves as one of NIBSC’s representatives on the Vaccine Working Party of the EMA, and is a member of the JCVI subgroup on meningococcal vaccines. Ian teaches on a number of vaccine related courses in the University of London and is a Visiting Professor at Imperial College.
Come listen to the MSc in Global Health Science students debate two controversial motions relating to ‘Priorities in Healthcare’: ‘This house believes that communicable diseases require more funding than non-communicable diseases’ and ‘This house would tax sugar-sweetened beverages’. Audience participation is encouraged; you will be invited to share your thoughts on the speakers’ arguments and asked to vote for the winning benches. The evening will conclude with a drinks and canapés reception.
Medieval Scottish Gothic: Glory and Excess
With Tim Porter, lecturer
(ticket includes tea & cake!)
Friday 5 December, 2–4pm
Ashmolean Museum Lecture Theatre
With the 2014 referendum for Scottish independence, the historic relationship between Scotland and England has recently been a prevalent topic of political discussion. This year also marks the 700th anniversary of the battle of Bannockburn, a significant Scottish victory in the First War of Scottish Independence. These lectures explore three key aspects of the Anglo-Scottish relationship during the Middle Ages.
Tickets are £9/£8 concessions (includes tea & cake), and booking is recommended as places are limited.
Part of a Medieval Scotland Afternoon Tea Lecture Series.
http://www.ashmolean.org/events/Lectures/?id=132
A public meeting of the Oxford Communist Corresponding Society, consisting of an introductory talk of about twenty minutes, followed by an hour of discussion. No need to book.
One of the UK’s leading scientists, Marcus du Sautoy, will argue that mathematical proofs are not just number-based, but are also a form of narrative. In response, author Ben Okri, mathematician Roger Penrose, and literary scholar Laura Marcus, will consider how narrative shapes the sciences as well as the arts.
The discussion will be chaired by Elleke Boehmer, Professor of World Literature in English, University of Oxford, and will be followed by audience discussion and a drinks reception.
This event is co-hosted by The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities (TORCH) and the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford. It is the opening event in TORCH ’s Humanities and Science series, which will explore how new answers can be found – and new research questions can be set – by bringing together the disciplines.
Free talk by Dr Jan Verbakel, GP & Visiting Fellow, University of Oxford
Acute infection is the most common presentation of children to ambulatory care. In contrast, serious infections are rare and often present at an early stage. Early recognition is important to avoid complications and death. Point-of-care (POC) tests might be useful, providing an immediate result at bedside. The most probable candidate is C-reactive protein (CRP).
We explored the added value of a fingerstick POC CRP to a 4-step decision tree in a multi-center prospective study in three different ambulatory care settings in Flanders (Belgium): general practice, outpatient paediatric clinic, and the emergency department.
Although the research questions were straightforward, the execution of this study was not. We coped with 99 problems, but the fingerstick wasn’t one.
This talk is free and there is no need to book.
SPEAKER
Professor Dawn Chatty (Refugee Studies Centre)
Refugee studies rarely address historical matters; yet understanding ideas about sanctuary, refuge and asylum have long roots in both Western and Eastern history and philosophy. Occasionally the Nansen era of the 1920s is examined or the opening years of, say, the Palestinian refugee crisis are addressed. But by and large the circumstances, experiences and influences of refugees and exiles in modern history are ignored. This article attempts to contribute to an exploration of the past and to examine the responses of one State – the late Ottoman Empire – to the forced migration of millions of largely Muslim refugees and exiles from its contested borderland shared with Tsarist Russia into its southern provinces. The seminar focuses on one particular meta-ethnic group, the Circassians, and explores the humanitarian response to their movement both nationally and locally as well as their concerted drive for assisted self-settlement. The Circassians are one of many groups that were on the move at the end of the 19th century and their reception and eventual integration without assimilation in the region provide important lessons for contemporary humanitarianism.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Professor Dawn Chatty is a social anthropologist whose ethnographic interests lie in the Middle East, particularly with nomadic pastoral tribes and refugee young people. Her research interests include a number of forced migration and development issues such as conservation-induced displacement, tribal resettlement, modern technology and social change, gender and development and the impact of prolonged conflict on refugee young people.
Professor Chatty is both an academic anthropologist and a practitioner, having carefully developed her career in universities in the United States, Lebanon, Syria and Oman, as well as with a number of development agencies such as the UNDP, UNICEF, FAO and IFAD. After taking her undergraduate degree with honours at UCLA (University of California at Los Angeles), she took a Master’s degree in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, Netherlands. She returned to UCLA to take her PhD in Social Anthropology under the late Professor Hilda Kuper.
Following the award of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship, Dawn spent the period October 2005–September 2007 researching and writing a manuscript on Dispossession and Forced Migration in the Middle East. The volume was published by Cambridge University Press (May 2010) with the title Dispossession and Displacement in the Modern Middle East.
Professor Chatty was Director of the Refugee Studies Centre from 2011-2014.