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Keynote speakers
| “ONE Paleopathology: Bringing Past Knowledge to Contemporary Health Risks in a Changing World.” Jane Buikstra is Professor of Anthropology and founding director of the Center for Bioarchaeological Research in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University and is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. Early in her career, she developed the highly successful discipline of bioarchaeology that merges methods from biological anthropology with those of archaeology. She has recently founded the emerging field of One Palaeopathology that applies principles of One Health to the past. Her interdisciplinary work combines palaeopathology, bioarchaeology, palaeodemography and techniques from forensic anthropology. She has published over 25 books and over 200 papers. She has won the Charles Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Biological Anthropologists (AABA) and the T. Dale Stewart Award from the American Academy of Forensice Sciences. Currently, she is the President for the Center for American Archeology and has been past President of the AABA, the AAA and the Paleopathology Association. She is inaugural editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of of Paleopathology. |
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"Biobehavioral Synchrony and the Foundations of Resilience: From Science to Clinic" Ruth Feldman, PhD is the Simms-Mann professor and director of the Center of Developmental, Social, and Relationship Neuroscience at Reichman University, Israel, directs the Irving B. Harris public clinic for young children and their families, and is an adjunct professor at Yale University Child Study Center. Her empirical research and theoretical models focus on the neurobiology of human attachments, processes of biobehavioral synchrony, and the biology of resilience. Her studies on the role of oxytocin, the parental brain, inter-brain synchrony, and the neuroscience of empathy have been instrumental in describing the biological basis of human social collaboration and widely published in the media. In several birth-to-adulthood studies she mapped the long-term effects of premature birth, maternal depression, and chronic trauma on brain and behavior and described the long-term effects of touch-based interventions on the adult brain. Her observational tools for analyzing social interactions are used in 32 countries and her dialogue-enhancing intervention for Israeli and Palestinian youth is the first to show long-term effects on brain and behavior in the context of intractable inter-group conflict. She was named a highly-cited researcher (2018), World Expert in parenting research (2019), and is the recipient of the 2018 Graven's Award for research on high-risk infants, the 2022 award of the Society of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, and the 2020 EMET prize, Israel's highest prize in arts and sciences. |
| "Obesity and overweight: How does an evolutionary perspective help us?" Daniel Nettle is Professor of Behavioral Science in the Population Health Sciences Institute Newcastle University and also a CNRS researcher in the Evolution and Cognition Team at the interdisciplinary Institut Jean Nicod, part of the Ecole Normale Superieure- Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL). After a brief but successful career as an actor, he moved back into academia and received his PhD in behavioral biology from University College London. His work encompasses interdisciplinary aspects of biology, behavior, cognition, health and social factors, including life course development, and spills over into public policy. Over the course of his career, he has published nine books ranging from linguistics to psychology to social deprivation and over 200 papers on a similarly broad span of topics. His current projects include research on moral and political cognition, economic and social inequality, hunger and food insecurity, trust, cooperation and antisocial behavior and adversity and aging. |
| Lifecourse Environmental Exposures and Health: Past, Present, and Future Considerations Jamaji Nwanaji-Enwerem is an Emergency Medicine Resident Physician and Adjunct Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Emory University’s School of Medicine and School of Public Health. He also serves as the Executive Director of Elnd, a community environmental education/improvement organization. In addition to his academic and community work, he has served as a member of the World Health Organization technical advisory group for occupational burden of disease estimation and White House Office of Public Engagement Roundtables on Clinical Innovation and Health Equity. His research covers several areas including public policy, environmental and community health, and epigenetics and the exposome. His work concentrates on how we can use molecular biomarkers to assess how various environmental exposures can impact human health, particularly for those people in marginal environments who are more likely to suffer from the effects of such exposures. |
The Gilbert S. Omenn Prize
The $5000 Gilbert S. Omenn Prize is awarded by the International Society for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health for best article published in the previous calendar year on a topic related to evolution in the context of medicine and public health.
The winner 2024 is:
ÁINE O’TOOLE, RICHARD A. NEHER, NNAEMEKA NDODO, [...], AND ANDREW RAMBAUT, APOBEC3 deaminase editing in mpox virus as evidence for sustained human transmission since at least 2016, SCIENCE, 2 Nov 2023, Vol 382, Issue 6670, pp. 595-600, DOI: 10.1126/science.adg8116
Talk title: APOBEC3 deaminase editing in MPXV as a signature of sustained human transmission
Abstract: Historically, mpox has been characterized as an endemic zoonotic disease that transmits through contact with the reservoir rodent host in West and Central Africa. However, in May 2022, human cases of mpox were detected spreading internationally beyond countries with known endemic reservoirs. When the first cases from 2022 were sequenced, they shared 42 nucleotide differences from the closest mpox virus (MPXV) previously sampled. Nearly all these mutations are characteristic of the action of APOBEC3 deaminases, host enzymes with antiviral function. Assuming APOBEC3 editing is characteristic of human MPXV infection, we developed a dual-process phylogenetic molecular clock that-inferring a rate of ~6 APOBEC3 mutations per year-estimates that MPXV has been circulating in humans since 2016. These observations of sustained MPXV transmission present a fundamental shift to the perceived paradigm of MPXV epidemiology as a zoonosis and highlight the need for revising public health messaging around MPXV as well as outbreak management and control.
The Prize Committee also awarded Honorable Mention to: Maya A. Lewinsohn, Trevor Bedford, Nicola F. Müller & Alison F. Feder, State-dependent evolutionary models reveal modes of solid tumour growth, Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 581–596 (2023).
ISEMPH thanks this year's prize committee chair Norman Johnson (UMass) and the other members of the committee Lisa Abegglen, Steve Austad, Joanna Masel, and Bob Perlman. The prize is made possible by Gilbert S. Omenn.
The George C Williams Prize
The George C. Williams Prize of $1,000 is awarded each year to the first author of the most significant article published in the Society’s flagship journal, Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.
The two winners 2024 are:
1. Anuraag Bukkuri, Frederick R Adler, Biomarkers or biotargets? Using competition to lure cancer cells into evolutionary traps, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2023, Pages 264–276, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoad017 .
2. Signalling need for care: a neglected functional role of medical treatment, by Mícheál de Barra, Kawthar Hakimy, Marijn de Bruin, Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2023, Pages 363–378, https://doi.org/10.1093/emph/eoad024.
Title: The Polyaneuploid Cancer Cell State and Therapeutic Resistance: Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics in Structured Populations
Abstract: Therapeutic resistance is a leading cause of treatment failure in cancer patients. Traditionally, resistance has been viewed as arising from a sequential accumulations of mutations. However, recent evidence suggests another scary path to resistance: the polyaneuploid cancer cell (PACC) state. This state is entered when cells skip mitosis and/or cytokinesis and undergo a whole genome doubling. In addition to serving as a refuge from therapy, the PACC state contributes to the evolvability of the population and promotes resistance in fascinating new ways. In this talk, I will develop mathematical models (and new modeling tools) to show how the PACC state contributes to resistance via evolutionary triage and self (epi)-genetic modification mechanisms and introduce the idea of life history enlightened therapies (a strategy which has recently shown promise in our in vitro experiments). More broadly, I will speak to how mathematical modeling can be a powerful tool to drive biomedical discovery.
Warmest thanks to the Editor, Cynthia Beall, and the Prize Committee: Bernhard Crespi (chair), Joe Alcock, Michelle Blyth, Manus Patten, and to donors who make the Prize possible.