Dr. Nathan Wolfe
Global Viral Forecasting Initiative

Current global disease control efforts focus largely on attempting to stop pandemics after they have already emerged. This fire brigade approach, which generally involves drugs, vaccines, and behavioral change, has severe limitations. Just as we discovered in the 1960s that it is better to prevent heart attacks than try to treat them, over the next 50 years we will realize that it is better to stop pandemics before they spread. That effort will increasingly be focused on viral forecasting and pandemic prevention.

Dr. Wolfe discusses how novel viruses enter the human population from animals and go on to become pandemics. He’ll discuss attempts by his own research group to study this process and recent attempts to control viruses. By creating a global network at the interface of humans and animals researchers are working to move viral forecasting from a theoretical possibility to a reality.

Dr. David Botstein
The Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University

World-renowned geneticist and pioneer of the Human Genome Project David Botstein discusses how the mapping of the human genome has transformed medicine. The Human Genome Project, completed in April 2003, mapped the location of each of the genes in the human genome and decoded, or sequenced, each gene's instruction. Because of the complexity of our genomes, the ability to obtain genomic sequences depends on revolutionary advances in speed, capacity, and versatility of digital computers.

Using a combination of new DNA chemistry and computational methods, scientists have identified thousands of genes that cause inherited diseases. Among them are genes that cause inherited predispositions to breast cancer, colon cancer, and kidney cancer, among others. With these methods it has become possible to study, at a comprehensive level, the differences in gene activity that accompany the transformation of tissues from normal to cancerous, and to classify different subtypes of cancers by their “molecular signatures.” We now can distinguish several kinds of breast cancer, some of which are more aggressive and lethal than others, and some of which are uniquely sensitive to new classes of targeted drugs.

Dr. Susan Roberts
Human Nutrition Center on Aging, Tufts University

Obesity, overweight, and related medical problems remain at epidemic levels. Sixty-five percent of the adult population and 33% percent of children are classified as overweight or obese, and approximately 10% of total U.S. medical expenditures are for health problems related to excess weight. Thus, obesity reduction is an urgent national priority from the perspectives of both health and the economy. Weight reduction is also a personal priority for many Americans, with 51% of adults in national surveys reporting efforts to lose weight within the past year.

Dr. Roberts discusses effective and ineffective approaches to weight loss. She highlights widely used gimmicks associated with popular diets that are ineffective for weight loss and hamper individual efforts to prevent weight regain. This presentation focuses on individual decision-making and responsibility in making sensible food and activity choices for weight control.