Report from Evolutionary Medicine Workshop in Warsaw

A Workshop on “Evolutionary Medicine” was held in Warsaw, Poland, October 22, 2010.

It was organized by Grazyna Jasienska, and sponsored by the Polish Academy of Sciences, Committee of Evolutionary and Theoretical Biology and Institute of Environmental Sciences at Jagiellonian University.

Workshop Overview: In the introductory talk Randolph Nesse argued that medicine without evolution is like engineering without physics. Grazyna Jasienska presented several case studies arguing that evolutionary biology has  practical applications during planning interventions and programs in public health. At the end of the first section of the meeting, Adam Lomnicki showed that a lack of natural selection may not necessarily be harmful.

In the second part of the workshop, diet-related selective pressure on genes involved in metabolism was discussed by Maria Kapiszewska. Using results of demographic studies conducted on Polish historical population, Ilona Nenko presented the relationship between reproductive history, energy budget and maternal lifespan. Evolutionary aspects of addiction was broadly described by Filip Rybakowski  Finally, Maciej Zatonski shared with workshop participants his experience in introducing evolutionary medicine ideas to Polish physicians.

This meeting was an unique occasion to establish contacts and exchange experience between Polish scientists, mostly evolutionary biologists, dealing with a range of topics. The greatest achievement of the workshop was that Polish scientists involved in evolutionary biology realized that their research and findings can often be useful for evolutionary medicine. In turn, medicine offers new research opportunities for evolutionary biologists, with research results that can play an important role in closing a gap between medicine and the basic science of evolutionary biology.

The workshop was organized by Polish Academy of Sciences, Committee of Evolutionary and Theoretical Biology and Institute of Environmental Sciences at Jagiellonian University.