BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//Talks.cam//talks.cam.ac.uk// X-WR-CALNAME:Talks.cam BEGIN:VEVENT SUMMARY:Plagues &\; History - Professor Chris Dobson\, Dr Mary Dobson\, University of Cambridge DTSTART:20140124T173000Z DTEND:20140124T183000Z UID:TALK46743@talks.cam.ac.uk CONTACT:Janet Gibson DESCRIPTION:Abstract\n\nPlagues have changed history\, stopped armies in t heir tracks and altered the fate of nations. Mary and Christopher Dobson w ill outline the impact of plagues on human history and reflect on related challenges that will be faced by future generations. Taking a broad chrono logical perspective\, their talk will range from the plagues of antiquity and the medieval period\, including the Black Death of the mid-14th centur y\, to the major infectious diseases of the 20th and 21st centuries\, such as the 1918-19 Spanish flu and the recent pandemic of HIV/AIDS. They will also highlight the continuing importance of addressing the ‘silent’ k illers\, such as the many diseases that afflict children and the poor in l ow-income countries\, as well as discussing the increasingly prevalent aff lictions of ageing and affluent societies\, including dementia and diabete s. Tremendous advances have been made over the centuries in our understand ing\, prevention\, and treatment of disease\, with triumphs such as the er adication of smallpox and a substantial rise in life expectancy in many pa rts of the world. Major challenges now are to find ways of preventing mode rn ‘plagues’\, such as those facing our ageing populations\, and this talk will conclude by looking at scientific research that offers hope for current and future generations. \n\nBiographies\n\nMary Dobson is an histo rian of medicine with wide ranging interests in the plagues of the past. S he has held a number of Research Fellowships\, including a Harkness Fellow ship at Harvard University\, and was formerly Director of the Wellcome Uni t for the History of Medicine at the University of Oxford\, and a Fellow o f Green Templeton College. She is author of a variety of publications incl uding a groundbreaking monograph\, Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England (Cambridge University Press\, 1997)\, and\, most recently\, two books for general audiences: Disease: the Extraordinary Stories Behin d History’s Deadliest Killers (Quercus\, 2007) and The Story of Medicine : From Bloodletting to Biotechnology (Quercus\, 2013). Her next book\, Mur derous Contagion\, will be published in October 2014. \n\nChristopher Dobs on is the John Humphrey Plummer Professor of Chemical and Structural Biolo gy at the University of Cambridge and Master of St. John’s College. He i s a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. He has receiv ed numerous awards\, including both the Davy and Royal Medals of the Royal Society\, and achieved international recognition for his research on the nature of protein misfolding and its links to disease. His work provides a fundamentally new view of the origins and means of progression of many of the most debilitating and increasingly prevalent ‘plagues’ of the mod ern era\, ranging from Alzheimer’s disease to Type II diabetes. \n LOCATION:LMH\, Lady Mitchell Hall END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR