Boston Flora

Tag: Harvard Medical School

  • Wednesday, October 15, 6:00 pm – Adapting Species to a Changing World: The Potential of Genome Editing

    Innovative new technologies may enable scientists to manipulate ancient and modern DNA to safeguard ecosystems from invasive organisms, help species recover their genetic diversity, and address issues of climate change. However, as geneticist George Church, Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, will discuss, while resurrecting mammoths could help maintain the Arctic permafrost, such developments require thoughtful consideration of complex system interactions and potential unintended consequences. This Harvard Museum of Natural History program will take place Wednesday, October 15, beginning at 6 pm in the Geological Lecture Hall at 24 Oxford Street in Cambridge. Free and open to the public. Free event parking available at the 52 Oxford Street Garage.

  • Saturday, March 22, 8:00 am – 4:00 pm – 2014 Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference

    The 24th Annual Massachusetts Land Conservation Conference, Healthy Land – Healthy Communities, will take place Saturday, March 22, from 8 – 4 at the Worcester Technical High School. One Skyline Drive in Worcester. This annual, day-long training and networking event provides land trust board members and staff, parks administrators and advocates, colleagues from federal, state and local government agencies, students, and philanthropists an opportunity to participate in a full day of workshops and discussions that focus on fostering healthy communities in Massachusetts through land conservation. Join your colleagues in land conservation and acquire the information, skills, and connections you need to be most effective.

    This year’s Keynote Speaker is Dr. Eric Chivian, Nobel Laureate, Founder of Harvard Medical School’s Center for Health and the Global Environment, Director of The Program for Preserving the Natural World, and heirloom apple farmer, pictured below.

    Registration is $42 for MLTC members, $62 for non members, and $30 for students.  Register online at http://www.massland.org/conference.

    http://greensource.construction.com/people/images/gs-image-peoplewatch-01-07.jpg

  • Wednesday, November 13, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – What is Life?

    Three seminal figures in biological and biomedical sciences, George M. Church, PhD, Gary Ruvkun, PhD, and Jack Szostak, PhD, discuss life as we know it, life as it may have begun, and life as it may evolve in the future, in the Cahners Theater at the Museum of Science on Wednesday, November 13, beginning at 7 pm. From basic elements of human biology to nuances in aging and illness and on to life forms we’ve never known before, venture into an investigation of what we know, what we may find out, and what we have yet to imagine. Cocktail reception follows this Reno Family Foundation Symposium. $20. Tickets available online at https://store.mos.org/index.php?action=showevent;event_id=746;c=1.

    George M. Church, PhD is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT, Director of the NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science, Synthetic Biology Platform Lead at Hansjorg Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, and recipient of the 2011 Franklin Bower Award for Achievement in Science for his contributions to genomic science, including the development of DNA sequencing technologies, and his efforts in personal genomics and synthetic biology.

    Gary Ruvkun, PhD (pictured below) is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital, and recipient of the 2008 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research and the 2012 Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research for his discovery of microRNAs.

    Jack Szostak, PhD is a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the Alexander Rich Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine, the 2008 Dr. H.P. Heineken Prize for Biochemistry and Biophysics, and the 2006 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research for his discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.

    Funding provided by the Reno Family Foundation Fund.

    http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette//srv/htdocs/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/11-ruvkun.jpg

  • Wednesday, February 1, 6:00 pm – The Origin of Cellular Life

    The amazing diversity of life is a result of billions of years of evolution. But how did the process of evolution begin? Nobel Prize winner Jack Szostak, a Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Distinguished Investigator at Massachusetts General Hospital, will describe how efforts to design and build very simple living cells are testing our assumptions about the nature of life, generating ideas about how life emerged from the chemistry of early Earth, and offering clues as to how modern life evolved from its earliest ancestors. Free and open to the public, Geological Lecture Hall, 24 Oxford Street. Free parking available in the 52 Oxford Street garage. Part of the Evolution Matters lecture series at The Harvard Museum of Natural History. Supported by a gift from Drs. Herman and Joan Suit.  For more information, visit www.hmnh.harvard.edu.

  • Tuesday, February 23, 6:00 pm – From Cooking Food to Cooking the Planet: Growing Constraints to Food Production

    To keep pace with the world’s food demand, it is estimated that agriculture production must double by 2050.  Dr. Samuel Myers, Instructor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a practicing physician, will discuss troubling trends, including climate change and increased threats from pests and pathogens that may constrain the world’s resources, requiring new approaches to sustainable agriculture.  The program will include a discussion moderated by Noel Michele Holbrook, Professor of Biology and Charles Bullard Professor of Forestry at Harvard. Free and open to the public. Part of the Food for Thought program series.

    Location:
    Harvard Museum of Natural History
    26 Oxford St.
    Cambridge , MA 02138

    Sponsor: Harvard Museum of Natural History
    Time(s): 6:00 pm, Tuesday, February 23
    Cost: Free and open to the public
    Phone: 617-495-3045
    Email: hmnhpr@oeb.harvard.edu
    http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/lectures_and_special_events/index.php