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By Dan Nonte, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-4314
Posted 3-05-09
GREENSBORO, NC — News reports on the connection between genes and various diseases have become commonplace. Genetic tests have been proposed as a tool to help people understand health risks and take steps to avoid disease.
But is this approach to medicine really reliable and useful? What are the problems and issues even if it is? Dr. Vince Henrich, director of UNCG’s Center for Biotechnology, Genomics and Health Research, will discuss these issues at 8 p.m. Wednesday, March 18, at The Green Bean coffee shop, 341 S. Elm Street, Greensboro.
The conversation – “Genes and Medicine: New Ways to Prevent Disease or a New Problem for Healthcare?” – is part of the university’s Science and Society Lecture Series, which features monthly Science on Tap talks led by faculty members and a campus lecture March 31 by Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garrett.
Sponsored by UNCG’s Institute for Community and Economic Engagement, all events in the series are free and open to the public. Dr. Bruce Banks, associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, will lead the final Science on Tap discussion of the semester at 8 p.m. April 15 at The Green Bean.
The semester’s featured speaker is Laurie Garrett, an authority on global health and disease prevention, and the best-selling author of “The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance” and “Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health.”
Garrett will speak at 7:30 p.m. March 31, in the Sullivan Science Building on the UNCG campus. She is has won the Peabody, Polk and Pulitzer prizes for her work and is senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations. Her website is http://lauriegarrett.com.
For more information about The Science and Society Lecture Series, visit scienceandsociety.uncg.edu, email researchpartners@uncg.edu or call (336) 334-4623.