SPEAKER:

Dr. Staffan Lindeberg:

• Ph.D. Medicine (Lund University, Sweden). Dissertation title: “Apparent absence of cerebrocardiovascular disease in Melanesians. Risk factors and nutritional considerations – the Kitava Study”.

• General Practitioner (S:t Lars Primary Health Care Center, Lund)

• M.D. (Lund University)

• Associate Professor (Center for Primary Health Care Research, Lund University)

• Principal Investigator of The Kitava Study

• Senior author of the first intervention Studies with Pre-Agricultural diets

SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM

9:30-10:45 – The Kitava Study:

- Brief Description of The Kitava people (Papua-New Guinea)

- Identification & Description of the markers analysed (Anthropometric Variables, Blood Pressure, Lipid Profile, Glycaemia, Insulinemia, Leptinemia, Uricemia, Adiponectinemia, Hemostatic and Fibrinolytic Variables, Bone density)

- Results & Discussion

10:45-11:10 – Healthy Snack

11:10-11:50 – Intervention Studies with Pre-Agricultural Diets:

- Introduction to the evolutionary basis of Nutrition

- Dietary Intervention Studies in Humans:
o Palaeolithic Type Diet vs Mediterranean Diet in Coronary Heart Disease Patients
o Palaeolithic Type Diet vs Diabetes Diet in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes

- Intervention Study with an animal model (pig):
o Palaeolithic Type Diet vs Cereal-based diet

11:50-12:30 –Macronutrient composition vs Bioactive Substances in foods. Implications for Chronic Disease Prevention:

- Limitations with diets that focus on Macronutrient Composition

- Bioactive Peptides present in Neolithic Foods (Gluten-derived peptides, Lectins, Casomorphins, Betacellulin, etc.)

- Lectins and Leptin Resistance

12:30-13:15 – Discussion

Raymond Pearl Memorial Lecture: Demography, endogamy, consanguinity, and the pace of recent human evolution
Alan H. Bittles, Ph.D., Human Biology Department and Centre for Human Genetics, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia

2. Ancient genetic adaptations to climate and current susceptibility to chronic disease
Anna Di Rienzo, Ph.D., Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago

3. New Frameworks of Understanding for the Origins of Agriculture
Bruce Smith, Ph.D., Senior Research Scientist and Curator of North American Archaeology, Smithsonian Institution

4. Starches, sugars and human evolution
Nathan J. Dominy, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Cruz,

5. How humans have molded malaria vector genomes
Greg Lanzaro, Ph.D., Director, University of California, Davis Mosquito Research Program, Departments of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine

6. How the malarias have molded the human genome
Tom Wellums, M. D. Ph.D., Chief of the Laboratory of Malaria and Vector Research, NIH

7. Epigenetics, Imprinting, and Human Disease Susceptibility
Randy L. Jirtle, Ph.D., Department of Radiation Biology, Duke University Medical Center

8. Discussant
Rick Kittles, Ph.D., Department of Medicine, University of Chicago School of Medicine

Cell-Cell Signaling Drives the Evolution of Complex Traits

The global concept of this symposium is that cell-cell signaling has ‘driven’ the vertical integration of vertebrate evolution. Among the principle vertebrate organs and systems there is a direct relationship between cell signaling and structure-function relationships in development, homeostasis, repair and aging. These mechanisms become progressively more derivative over evolutionary time, as the selection pressure becomes one for the interrelationships between organs- respiration and metabolism, metabolism and photoreception, respiration as Radical Oxygen Species and signal transduction. The speakers will address these hierarchical interrelationships in their models and mechanisms of choice.

1. John Torday, Professor of Pediatrics, UCLA- “Introduction: Cell-cell signaling and lung evo-devo”.
2. Susan Crockford, Assistant Professor, University of Victoria. “Evolution of Endocrine Mechanisms”
3. Sally Leys, Assistant Professor, University of Alberta- “The Evolution of Vertebrate Body Plans”
4. Scott Nichols, Post-Doctoral Student, UC-Berkley- “Cell-Cell Signaling and the Origins of Vertebrate Evolution”
5. Margaret McFall-Ngai, Professor, Medical Microbiology and Immunology, U.Wisconsin-Madison “The Evolution of Animal-Bacterial Symbiosis”.
6. Marty Cohn, U.Florida at Gainesville. Evolution of the urogenital tract?
7. Nadia Mezentseva, Graduate Student, New York Medical College, Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy, “Evolution of Thermogenesis”.
8. Arkhat Abzhanov, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School: “How Darwin’s Finches Got Their Beaks”
9. Gary Litman, Professor of Immunology, U.Florida, “Evolution of Immunity”.
10. Tomasz Owerkowicz, Post-Doctoral Fellow, UC-Irvine, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, “Evolution of the Cardiopulmonary System”.
11. Jim Hicks, Comparative Physiology, UCI “How to Integrate Cell-Mol Evolution”

* Darwin as a scientist * The reception and development of Darwinian evolution in the 19th and 20th centuries * Darwinian evolution in the 21st century * Misapplications of Darwinism * Evolution in the courts * Evolution in art and culture * Evolution and religion * Evolution and morality * Evolution and sex/gender * Evolution and medicine * Evolution and language * Evolution and socialization * Evolution and global climate change

The conference begins Thursday, March 12 with a daylong session on Darwin in the Classroom – Evolution and Education; the formal academic program begins Friday, March 13.

Keynote speakers include:

Frans de Waal, Ph.D., Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University; author of Chimpanzee Politics and Our Inner Ape; preeminent researcher on primate social behavior

Judge John E. Jones III, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, who ruled against the Dover (Pennsylvania) area school board’s attempt to introduce teaching on “intelligent design” into school science classes

Jay Labov, Ph.D., senior advisor for education and communications at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

William F. McComas, Ph.D., Parks Family Professor of Science Education, University of Arkansas; 2007 recipient of the Evolution Education Award sponsored by the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) and the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS)

Presentations will be accepted on the basis of 200-word abstracts submitted by June 16, 2008. Presentation time for papers is limited to 20 minutes. Send abstracts to the Hofstra Cultural Center, to the attention of Carol D. Mallison at Carol.D.Mallison@hofstra.edu. Notification of acceptance will be sent by June 30, 2008.

For additional information, visit the Darwin’s Reach Web site: http://www.hofstra.edu/darwinsreach