Saturday, October 28, 2006

Events Free — Meals Provided

12:30 p.m. to 2 p.m.

Lunch with a Scientist
Tremont Hotel

8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Epigenomics
Andrew Feinberg, M.D., M.P.H., King Fahd Professor of Medicine, Departments of Molecular Biology and Genetics, and Professor, Department of Oncology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
If DNA is the alphabet that spells out the messages that direct our construction, epigenomics is the grammar that allows those messages to be understood. It comprises another code, another collection of information, that is associated with DNA but independent of the DNA sequence itself. Researchers know far less about the information in this code than they do about the information in DNA 's double helix. And unlike your genes, which you're stuck with, the epigenomic code changes over your lifetime. It's important in the production of stem cells, the genesis of tumors, and even allows your environment to influence your cells' programs. New findings, many of which have not yet been published, will be presented on tumor formation and on how the epigenomic code might be manipulated to prevent other illnesses and preserve health.

Voter Psychology
Ted Brader, Associate Professor of Political Science, College of Literature, Science and the Arts, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
As an elite, educated group, we all cast our votes based on thoughtful consideration of the issues, of course. But maybe there's a little bit more to it than that. In some of the first studies to look at the role of emotions in voters' decisions, researchers are doing psychological experiments to examine not only how voters respond to emotional ads, but exactly how politicians exploit voters' emotions to sway their choices. They are also looking at contentious issues outside elections, such as the immigration debate. Which elements of that issue are most likely to trigger anxiety, and why? We'll learn about a new, unpublished analysis of the use of emotion in ads from the 2000 campaign, research sorting out the role of fear, anger and enthusiasm in elections, and get a glimpse of forthcoming studies on the role of sympathy and anger in the response to Hurricane Katrina and the role of shame and humor in political debate, focusing on the speeches of Martin Luther King and the Daily Show.

Events Free — Meals Provided

8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. on the Johns Hopkins campus.
Buses leave for the campus from 7:30 to 7:45 a.m.

Environmental Toxins
Rolf Halden, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Health Sciences, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Certain hand soaps carry the antimicrobial agent triclocarban, or TCC, even though the chemical has no clear benefit to the average consumer. Sewage systems carry triclocarban to wastewater treatment plants, which, researchers have found, are very effective at removing — but not destroying — the antimicrobial agent, which is toxic when ingested and can cause reproductive problems. The agent collects in the sludge removed from wastewater treatment — which is often recycled as a fertilizer and soil conditioner. Researchers will also report where else they've found TCC , and what the consequences might be.

Fossil Forests
Hope Jahren, Ph.D., Professor, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University.
Some of the most dramatic evidence of climate and other environmental changes due to human activity are found near the north and south poles, where decreases in ice mass and increases in temperature have upset natural ecosystems. To understand the present, however, it's important to understand what happened in the polar regions in the past. Researchers would like to know more about the teeming plants and animals that flourished in conifer forests that covered an ice-free Siberia, Greenland and Arctic Canada during the Eocene, about 45 million years ago. How did these plant communities live through three months of total darkness? What was the status of the greenhouse effect in the atmosphere at that time? The discovery of a fabulous wealth of exquisitely preserved fossils on a remote northern Canadian island is allowing researchers to answer those questions. Using high-tech chemical forensics, they are vastly expanding the classical paleontological work in those areas.

8:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Rebuilding Blood Vessel Walls
Harry C. Dietz, M.D., Victor A. McKusick Professor of Medicine and Genetics, Johns Hopkins, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
Marfan syndrome is a disorder of connective tissue that leads to the excessive growth of long bones, and problems with mitral valves, aortic aneurysm, emphysema, dislocations of the lens of the eye and a predisposition to sudden death from rupture of blood vessels. Fifteen years ago, Dietz and his colleagues made a major breakthrough when they identified the gene responsible for the disorder, but the celebration was short-lived. The gene, called fibrillin-1 is required for the growth of elastic tissues in many parts of the body, and the thinking was that if the gene was defective, little could be done to correct the illness. It was too late to make more elastic tissue, and so the risks of sudden death couldn't be controlled. In April, 2006, however, Dietz reported a surprising new finding in mice. An off-the-shelf blood pressure medication could prevent worsening of the syndrome and might even repair the damage to the aorta, potentially reducing the risk of early death. The aim now is to see whether the drug might work the same way in humans — a risky, uncertain, and possibly life-saving experiment.

Plastic Electronics
Richard D. McCullough, Ph.D., Dean, Mellon College of Science, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.
In the 1990s, researchers discovered a family of electricity-conducting plastics with unusual — and potentially highly useful — properties. Indeed, these novel polymers are on the way to commercial application as solar cells, but of a kind that could be printed on large rolls, and sprayed or painted on buildings — or used as window coatings. That's only one of the applications. These printable plastics are also useful in transistors, flexible computer displays, and as chemical sensors. Researchers are currently exploring their use in the detection of nerve gases and chemical and biological warfare agents, along with other commercial and workplace settings. We'll get an advance look at what's been done so far, and where that research is headed.