Is there anything wrong with putting a price on health, education, citizenship, and the environment? Where do markets serve the public good, and where do they not belong?

Join us for a lively discussion with Professor Michael J. Sandel about money, markets, and the good things in life.

Registration required

Professor Trevor Young, Dean of the University of Toronto and world expert on bipolar disorder, is coming to Oxford to give a talk on “Your Brain Needs YOU: Why Psychiatry Is the Best Specialty for the Brightest Medical Minds”.

Venue: Blue Boar Lecture Theatre
Time: 6-7pm (please arrive promptly)
Cost: FREE!

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As an active clinician scientist, Dr. Young’s principal research interest includes understanding the molecular basis of bipolar disorder and its treatment, and how to apply these findings to the clinical setting. He is widely published and well funded by peer-reviewed granting agencies. His research is particularly focused on understanding the processes that lead to long-term changes in brain structure and function in patients with bipolar disorder and how these changes can be targeted by mood stabilizing drugs.

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Dr. Young was appointed Chair, Department of Psychiatry effective September 1, 2010. He received his medical degree at the University of Manitoba. This was followed by residency training at McGill University and the University of Toronto where he also completed his PhD in Medical Sciences. He completed a Research Fellowship at Johns Hopkins University. His former roles include Physician-in-Chief, Executive Vice President Programs at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Professor and Cameron Wilson Chair in Depression Studies in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto, and Professor and Head, Department of Psychiatry, University of British Columbia. He was received numerous awards including the Douglas Utting Award for outstanding contributions in the field of mood disorders, the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology Heinz Lehmann Award, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. He has led several large clinical programs including the Mood Disorders Program at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, which received the American Psychiatric Services Gold Achievement Award. In 2009, he was elected as a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.

Dr. Young serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, effective January 1, 2015.

While qualitative research has received greater acceptance in a great variety of disciplines, including health and medicine, the true potential of qualitative analysis seems not to have been realised in such areas. Hence, the critique for presenting anecdotal evidence is often quite fair. With the basis in two examples, this talk will demonstrate how the potential of qualitative analysis is developed by maintaining a strong inductive strategy of concept development. Rather than summarising endless amounts of nuanced data, the qualitative researcher may apply a detailed coding approach to hunt for empirical insight that triggers curiosity and development of novel ideas. On basis of two examples presented, we will develop what are good qualitative research questions and hence good qualitative research.

Welcome to Future Debates, a series of public events supported by the British Science Association.

A genome is an entire set of DNA; all the instructions for making every part of a living thing. Research into our genomes could improve our understanding of diseases, cancers and passing on certain traits. The application of this research through genomic medicine is at the cutting edge of science. There’s large potential for the technology to help us create new treatments and preventative approaches.

Someone’s genome can explain lots of things about them, and we don’t yet understand all of what the genetic code means. Genome data is being collected from a group of patients with rare diseases and cancers across the UK, as part of the Genomics England 100,000 Genomes Project. This information needs to be collected and stored securely, interpreted by experts and viewed in a way that protects the donor’s identity. There have been discussions among scientists about the implications of genomic medicine for privacy and the NHS, and the British Science Association believes that it is vital to open that conversation up to the public.

Come and join our panel of scientists and other experts to discuss who should have access to this data. Should genomic data be used outside medicine? Should private companies share any profits they make from genomic data with participants? Does the right to privacy outweigh the societal benefit of genomic research?

Doors open from 6.00 pm, and the debate will run from 6.30 pm until 8.00 pm.

Future Debates events are part of the British Science Association’s work to make science a fundamental part of British society and culture. We want to empower many more people – not just scientists – to constructively engage in debates over the applications and implications of science in their lives, their local economy and the UK’s future.

Follow us on twitter @LivingWellOx @HumanGeneticsOx @BritSciAssoc and use the event hashtag #FutureDebates

Professor Bill Fulford is a Fellow of St Catherine’s College and Member of the Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford; Emeritus Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health, University of Warwick Medical School; and Director of the Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice, St Catherine’s College, Oxford (valuesbasedpractice.org).
The title of their talk is ‘The Montgomery ruling on consent: values and evidence in surgical care’.

Professor Ashok Handa is Associate Professor in Surgery and Director of Surgical Education at the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences at the Univeristy of Oxford.

The title of their talk is ‘The Montgomery ruling on consent: values and evidence in surgical care’.

Kay Davies has dedicated her life to the cure of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, which is one of the most common, fatal genetic disorders diagnosed in children. She contributed to the design of the pre-natal tests used around the world. Her team isolated a key gene sequence for the potential treatment of the disease, and she’s now leading clinical trials for the development of a cure. Learn about this scientific journey, and engage in a
conversation with one of the most remarkable Oxford scientists.

What would it have been like to visit your physician in the 19th century? Researcher Melissa Dickinson takes you on a time travel to discover how the sounds of the body helped determine medical diagnoses thanks to surprising instruments.

Date/Time: Saturday 25 June, 15:00
Venue: Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here:
http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sat-opening-weekend.html

How does our lifestyle affect the likelihood of developing dementia? What choices can you make to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s? Join John Gallacher for a lively discussion and Q&A on exciting new research that indicates a healthier lifestyle – including exercising, limited alcohol intake, and not smoking – is more important than genetics for cutting the risk of Alzheimer’s.

Date/Time: Sunday 26 June, 14:30
Venue: Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sun-opening-weekend.html

How to assess potential treatments for a disease such as Ebola, during the largest outbreak in history? Peter Horby’s team run clinical trials under such challenging conditions. Share this scientific and humanitarian mission, with insights from clinical studies led in Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Date/Time: Sunday 26 June, 17:30
Venue: Story Museum, Pembroke Street, Oxford
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/sun-opening-weekend.html

This storytelling event run by Living Well Oxford explores the medical condition known as stroke. Hear moving personal stories from patients, doctors and researchers, as they describe their unique perspectives on the illness. What does it feel like to have a stroke and what can life be like afterwards? What more do we need to learn about strokes? What are the most effective treatments and is prevention better than cure?

Date/Time: Monday 27 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Schizophrenia, psychotic disorders, bipolar disorders… get ‘a very short introduction’ to severe mental illness and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist Tom Burns.

Date/Time: Tuesday 28 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short
introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health during adolescence and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with psychiatrist Belinda Lennox and psychologist Peter Smith

Date/Time: Wednesday 29 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: www.oxscifest.org

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Drugs can help patients suffering from various mental illnesses like depression, anxiety or schizophrenia. How do these drugs work in the brain? How to ensure the safety of patients? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to drugs for psychotherapy, and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with pharmacologist Les Iversen.

‘Gene-editing’ sounds like science fiction, but today it is an emerging reality. This raises hope for treating medical problems, but also opens ethical quandaries about equality, privacy, and personal freedom. Discuss these questions with a panel of experts including geneticist Andy Greenfield, science fiction author Paul McAuley and science policy advisor Elizabeth Bohm. Lisa Melton, Senior News Editor at Nature Biotechnology, will moderate the event, with Ben Davies, Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, presenting technical background.

Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/wednesday.html

Barry Murnane reveals the latest discoveries from his TORCH partnership with the Science Museum London, using unusual objects from its collections to tell the history of lung disease in the 19th century.

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Mental health problems account for nearly 40% of all illness but only 13% of NHS funds are devoted to their treatment. How to best address the mental health challenge with limited resources? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to mental health services, and dive into a thought provoking discussion with psychiatrist David Clark.

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June 19:00
Venue: Larkmead School, Abingdon
Admissions: £6/£4(conc.)/£19(fam.)
Suitability: 14+
BOOK NOW: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/thursday.html

Although the dramatic increase in life expectancy we have witnessed over the past century is arguably one of medicine’s greatest successes, it is also responsible for the increasing incidence of chronic and degenerative diseases in developed countries around the world. Harnessing the properties of stem cells offers an attractive strategy to addressing some of the health-care challenges that lie ahead. In this lecture, Paul Fairchild will discuss the various types of stem cells and the properties that distinguish them from other cell types of the body, while providing an overview of the likely impact that tapping this resource will have on modern medicine in the future.

Date/Time: Thursday 30 June 19:30
Venue: St. Aldates Tavern, Oxford
Admissions: £5/£4(conc.)/£16(fam.)
Suitability: 18+
Book here: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/thursday.html

Explore the effects of alcohol on the brain in a cocktail session hosted by neuroscientist Elizabeth Tunbridge. Mix a cocktail to lubricate a discussion on why drugs of abuse are pleasurable, and also –by hijacking the brain’s pleasure pathways – why they can become addictive. Explore how our individual genetic make-up influences how our brains respond to drugs of abuse. For those who like their science shaken, and even stirred!

Date/Time: Friday 1 July 12:30-13:15
Venue: Blackwell’s Bookshop, Oxford
Admissions: Free, Drop-In
Suitability: 14+
Find out more: http://www.oxfordshiresciencefestival.com/friday.html

Explore mental health questions with authors of the ‘A very short introduction’ series, and researchers and health practitioners from the Oxford Academic Health Science Network.

Today’s session: Why do we need sleep? What happens to our health when we don’t get enough, and how does our modern lifestyle impact our sleep quality? What causes the major sleep disorders? Get ‘a very short introduction’ to sleep and dive into a thought-provoking discussion with neuroscientist Russell Foster.

Imagine constantly worrying about something that you know is not real, or feel a deep anxiety that only repetitive (and often embarrassing) behavior can diminish. Now imagine this happening 24 hours a day for 365 days a year and you can begin to understand what it might be like to suffer from OCD. Join scientist Paula Banca who will discuss the OCD brain and why psychopaths never suffer from it, followed by artist Dan Holloway’s performance poetry inspired by his own experience. This event is part of the Storytelling Science project.

Psychologist in the Pub events are completely free and open to everyone, so please join us on:

Thursday 7th July, 6:30 for 7pm start, with Dr Kinga Komarzynska & Dr Chelsea Slater

What can we learn from crime scene behaviour?

Crime linkage focuses on identifying crimes committed by the same offender using crime scene behaviour. Offender behaviour is used to distinguish between crimes committed by the same person and crimes committed by different people. The presentation will introduce this evidence-based approach to the detection of serial offenders and will be a brief introduction to the theory behind crime linkage as well as exploration of some of the empirical research that investigated behavioural consistency and change within a series of crimes perpetrated by serial offenders.

The talk will be held in the function room in Wig & Pen pub.
The venue is wheelchair accessible.

September 23, 2016 –
14:00 to 15:00
Access Grid Room (room 277)
Oxford e-Research Centre, 7 Keble Road, Oxford

Seminar No booking required Open to all Coffee and cakes
The Oxford e-Research Centre is pleased to welcome Professor Clive Bowman from the Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford and Olivier Delrieu from C4X Discovery Ltd. They will present a seminar entitled “How can new mathematics and GPUs help us understand Parkinson’s disease and other complex disorders?”.

This event is open to all and no booking is required. Coffee and cakes will be provided and there will be the opportunity to talk to the speakers after the event.

About our speakers

Clive Bowman, CSci FRSM FRSS FLS
Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford

Professor Clive Bowman is a Royal Society Industrial Fellow. His research at the University of Reading and Mathematical Institute, Oxford while at Daiichi-Sankyo, covered high dimensional visualisation of diverse clinically relevant data. The ‘individualised divergences‘ methodology allows simultaneous analysis of all data types filtered by reference to a base group. Passionate about success in medical ‘Big Data’, he is an EU expert, entrepreneur and has held a variety of novel and challenging senior pharmaceutical industry, government regulation, academic body and governance committee posts. He is willing and ideally placed to bring considerable analytical expertise to generate collaborative success.

Olivier Delrieu, MD, MSc, MBA
VP Clinical Development & Mathematics, C4X Discovery Ltd

Olivier Delrieu trained in Neurology at the Faculty of Medicine of Lille, France, received an MSc in Human Genetics at the Pasteur Institute of Paris and achieved an executive MBA at the EDHEC Business School. He has international academic and pharmaceutical experience in clinical development, target discovery and genetics. His personal interest is in technologies and business models supporting the development of personalized medicines and reduction of attrition.

Abstract

The objective of C4X Discovery is to deliver better and safer medicines that could reach patients more quickly. One of our technologies is a new mathematical method, Taxonomy3. Applied to large genetic datasets it allows us to better understand complex disorders, and to provide robust biological hypothesis to develop new medicines. These analyses are computer-intensive, and so we recently moved our software from CPUs to GPUs in collaboration with Mike Giles, Wes Armour and Nassim Ouannoughi at the Oxford e-Research Centre.

R&D in the pharmaceutical industry is a long, expensive and complex process. At the start, a new biological hypothesis drives the discovery of new drug candidates. When proven safe in animals and healthy volunteers these candidates are then tested in patients to confirm their efficacy as medicines. This process takes about 10 years. Unfortunately, the initial biological hypothesis is proven wrong 50% of the time. This figure is worse for neurodegenerative disorders.

Encouragingly, when the initial biological hypothesis is based on genetic clues, the probability of success in clinical development is significantly higher. However, classical statistical methods can explain only a fraction of the genetic load expected to be found in complex disorders. This gives a significant opportunity for new mathematical methods to add value by extracting more genetic insights.

The Taxonomy3 method is based on ‘individualised divergences’ (for an introduction to these negentropies see: – Geometry Driven Statistics (ed: Dryden, I L & Kent, J T). John Wiley 337-355). Decomposing the dimensionality of this nonlinear transform of data highlights the evidence particular features carry for the comparison of interest. Here whether a person has a characteristic disorder or not.

The method is implemented as a C++ / openMPI program running on an Amazon cloud Linux cluster. A typical resampling analysis requires several thousand CPUs for a couple of weeks. To allow a cost-effective analysis of large datasets, we recoded some modules in CUDA to make use of GPUs. Some modules now run about 100 times faster, with an overall cost reduction of 5 to 10 fold.

This work allowed us to apply this technology to a Parkinson’s disease genetic dataset. We discovered evidence for new genes of interest specific to patient subgroups. These findings had a significant business impact for our company.

Get your game face on – it’s poker night at Science Oxford.

Brush off your pack of cards and outplay Lady Luck with an evening of poker probability and psychology. Learn more about the head games that define what happens at the poker table with mathematician and author of The Perfect Bet Adam Kucharski and psychologist Danielle Shore, who’ll show how your poker face can affect your opponents’ decision-making. Their talks will be followed by a friendly poker tournament – the perfect opportunity to put into practice the science of poker.

Chips included as part of ticket price.

Delivering reliable drinking water to millions of rural people in Africa and Asia is an elusive and enduring global goal. A systematic information deficit on the performance of and demand for infrastructure investments limits policy design and development outcomes.

Since 2010, the ‘Smart Handpump’ project has been exploring new technologies, methods and models to understand and respond to this challenge. A mobile-enabled data transmitter provides foundational data on hourly water usage and failure events which has enabled the establishment of performance-based maintenance companies in Kenya that are improving handpump reliability by an order of magnitude.

The research is a collaboration between the School of Geography and the Environment and the Department of Engineering Science with a range of partners including government, international bodies such as UNICEF and the private sector. New research involves modelling the accelerometry data from the handpumps to predict aquifer depth. We invite you to test the Smart Handpump in the car park and debate how the ‘accidental infrastructure’ of rural handpumps can spark bolder initiatives to deliver water security for millions of poor people in Africa and Asia.

‘Depression and the Brain’ will be discussed from the point of view of neuroscience, psychology/psychiatry and philosophy. Three eminent speakers will give talks and arising questions will be discussed under audience participation. Tea and coffee will be served at the interval.

Xtrac / Oxford e-Research Centre
October 20, 2016 – 19:00
Oxford e-Research Centre
7 Keble Road, Oxford

Seminar Open to all
This exciting talk from Xtrac – global leaders in racing gearbox design will discuss the challenges of designing a gearbox for a unique hypercar – the Pagani Huayra. Voted in 2015 by IMechE as one of the leading engineering companies, this talk will discuss what sets Xtrac apart from its competitors as well as the challenges that arise when you are involved in a hypercar design project.

Speakers:

Jon Marsh – Chief Designer

Dominic Smith – Head of Advanced Engineering

Paul Pomfret – Assistant Chief Designer

Refreshments will begin at 6.30pm, with the talk starting at 7pm. Booking is not compulsory but is helpful for the organisors.

Professor James Byrne from the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences will give a talk on ‘Flow disrupters for the treatment of intracranial aneurysms unsuitable for endosaccular coiling’.

All members of the University and NHS clinical staff are welcome.

Global efforts to improve the health of women and girls have, in the past few decades, largely focused on reducing unacceptably high levels of maternal mortality and morbidity. In large part because of these successful efforts, the global burden of disease has changed significantly in recent years, such that the leading causes of death and disability for women in almost all countries in the world are now non-communicable diseases.

A global agenda for women’s health must, therefore, have a broadened, redefined focus to encompass not only women’s sexual and reproductive health, but also the leading causes of death and disability for women. In this talk Professor Robyn Norton, The George Institute for Global Health, will talk about what recommendations can be made and how they can be implemented.

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

The Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice and the Nuffield Department of Surgical Sciences invite you to attend a one-day conference on
“Montgomery and Me: Implementing the New Standard for Consent to Treatment in Medicine and Healthcare”.

The Supreme Court ruling Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board (2015) marked a shift in the basis of consent in medicine and healthcare from the established “prudent clinician” test to a “prudent patient” test. The new standard requires clinicians to enter into dialogue with their patients to the point that they gain sufficient understanding of the options available to make a choice that takes into account their own values.

This conference will raise your awareness of the new Montgomery standard for consent and to explore its implications from key stakeholders’ perspective.

Confirmed Speakers include Baroness Hale, Deputy President of the Supreme Court and one of the Montgomery judges, and Professor Jonathan Herring, Professor of Law, University of Oxford.