Abstract: CRISPR-Cas9 and other new tools are making genome editing faster, cheaper, and more accurate. When coupled with cheaper sequencing and our more slowly increasing understanding of the effects of DNA sequencing, this breakthrough technology may bring within our reach the power to transform, fundamentally, all of life.  Most of the attention so far has focused on human germ line genome editing, but the implications stretch much farther. This talk will explore some of the issues for the use of this technology, in humans (germ line or somatic cell) and in other life-forms. It will also note the limits of our current understanding and regulatory framework.

About the Speaker: Hank Greely is the Deane F. and Kate Edelman Johnson Professor of Law and Professor, by courtesy, of Genetics at Stanford University.  He specializes in ethical, legal, and social issues arising from advances in the biosciences, particularly from genetics, neuroscience, and human stem cell research.  He directs the Stanford Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Program in Neuroscience and Society; chairs the California Advisory Committee on Human Stem Cell Research; and serves on the Neuroscience Forum of the Institute of Medicine, the Advisory Council for the National Institute for General Medical Sciences of NIH, the Committee on Science, Technology, and Law of the National Academy of Sciences, and the NIH Multi-Council Working Group on the BRAIN Initiative. He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2007.

Professor Greely graduated from Stanford in 1974 and from Yale Law School in 1977.  He served as a law clerk for Judge John Minor Wisdom on the United States Court of Appeals and for Justice Potter Stewart of the United States Supreme Court.  After working during the Carter Administration in the Departments of Defense and Energy, he entered private practice in Los Angeles in 1981 as a litigator with the law firm of Tuttle & Taylor, Inc.  He began teaching at Stanford in 1985.  

All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication

Abstract:

Studying physicians in training, I investigate how uncertainty and tacit knowledge may give rise to significant practice variation, via learning and influence in organizations. Consistent with tacit learning, and empirically exploiting a discontinuity in the formation of teams, I find that relative experience substantially increases the influence of a physician on variation. Learning sufficient to generate convergence exists in specialist-driven services but not in the generalist-driven service, a difference unexplained by formal diagnostic codes. Convergence in specialist services occurs with both general and specific experience. In contrast to learning and influence, rich physician characteristics correlated with preferences and ability determine little if any variation.

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication

Abstract:

This talk will introduce new quantitative data on over 1000 social, economic, and environmental policies in 193 countries.  It will open a discussion on how the global data revolution could transform how we can examine what works to address social inequalities and their impact on global health.

Please join us after the seminar for light refreshments with the presenter.

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication.

Abstract:

Advanced cancer affects over ½ million people annually requiring high quality care delivery that addresses patients’ goals of care, symptoms, and complex care coordination.  In 2011, using a hybrid of human-centered design methodologies, we designed a composite of innovative, low-cost implementation strategies to improve advanced cancer care delivery. The strategies include lay health coaches who elicit patient and family goals, assist in advance care planning and symptom management, and connect patients and families to supportive community-based services.   In August 2013, supported by funding from the Veterans Administration Specialty Care Transformation Office of Healthcare Transformation, we launched the first pilot test using a randomized control trial to evaluate the feasibility of the program and the effect on patient satisfaction and healthcare utilization.  Although the trial is ongoing, the presentation will focus on the preliminary analysis of the advanced cancer care program’s success in achieving feasibility, improved patient satisfaction, and reduced healthcare utilization and expenditures.   We will describe the unique study design and discuss implications for future efforts focused on improving advanced cancer care within and outside the VA health care delivery system.

This event has been cancelled.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication

Dr. Barry Zuckerman, Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at Boston University School of Medicine and Chair Emeritus, will discuss the development, implementation and lessons learned from four programs for low income patients and their parents at Boston Medical Center; Reach Out and Read, Medical legal Partnership, Health Leads, and Healthy Steps that were disseminated nationally. The second part of the presentation will present future ideas for transforming Child health care based on the needs of community based efforts to promote children entering school ready to learn that can best be met by clinicians who have a regular and trusting relationship with parents. The best way to help children is to help their parents and the best way to reach parents is thru their children. Specifically, this includes a two generation model of child health care care focusing on identification of prevalent maternal health problems that interfere with children's development and learning; maternal depression, maternal trauma, cigarettes, drug and alcohol use and unplanned pregnancy. In addition the development and use of digital media showing parents instead of telling them about how best to promote their children's development, early literacy, and nutrition with well designed follow up text messages emphasizing age appropriate concrete activities to promote learning  coupled with the mindset of how hard one has to work to be a good parent given multiple stresses.

Please note: All research in progress seminars are off-the-record. Any information about methodology and/or results are embargoed until publication

Abstract:

Although the importance of diet quality for improving child health is widely recognized, the roles of environmental factors and the absorption of nutrients for children’s physical growth and morbidity have not been adequately integrated into a policy framework. Moreover, nutrient intakes gradually affect child health, so it is helpful to use alternative tools to evaluate short-term interventions versus long-term food policies. This article emphasizes the role of diet quality reflected in the intake of nutrients such as protein, calcium, and iron for children’s physical growth. Vitamins A and C are important for reducing morbidity. Children’s growth and morbidity affect their cognitive development, which is critical for the future supply of skilled labor and economic growth. Evidence on these issues from countries such as Bangladesh, India, Kenya, the Philippines, and Tanzania is summarized. The supply of nutritious foods is appraised from the viewpoint of improving diet quality. Finally, the roles of educational campaigns and indirect taxes on unhealthy processed foods consumed by the affluent in developing countries are discussed.

Abstract: When President Obama approved the "Olympic Games'' cyber attacks on Iran, he told aides that he was worried about what would happen when nations around the world began to use destructive cyber attacks as a new weapon of disruption and coercion. Now, we've begun to find out. David Sanger, the national security correspondent of The New York Times and author of Confront and Conceal, the book that revealed the cyber program against Iran, will explore how offensive cyber operations have developed in the Obama administration -- and why they have been so little debated.

About the Speaker: David E. Sanger is National Security Correspondent and senior writer for The New York Times. He is the author of two bestsellers on foreign affairs: The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (2009) and Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (2012). He served as the Times’ Tokyo Bureau Chief, Washington Economic Correspondent, White House correspondent during the Clinton and Bush Administrations and Chief Washington Correspondent.

Mr. Sanger has twice been a member of New York Times teams that won the Pulitzer Prize, first for the investigation into the causes of the Challenger disaster in 1986, and later for investigations into the struggles within the Clinton administration over technology exports to China. He teaches national security policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

Abstract: Adjudication of national security poses complex challenges for courts. In Judicial Review of National Security, David Scharia explains how the Supreme Court of Israel developed unconventional judicial review tools and practices that allowed it to provide judicial guidance to the Executive in real-time. In this book, he argues that courts could play a much more dominant role in reviewing national security, and demonstrates the importance of intensive real-time inter-branch dialogue with the Executive, as a tool used by the Israeli Court to provide such review. This book aims to show that if one Supreme Court was able to provide rigorous judicial review of national security in real-time, then we should reconsider the conventional wisdom regarding the limits of judicial review of national security. 

Abstract: In the early morning hours of March 28, 1979, began a series of events that led to a partial meltdown of the reactor core at Unit 2 of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant and the worst accident in the history of the commercial nuclear power industry in the United States. Catalyzed by this event, the industry leadership formed an independent oversight entity, the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, resourced its technical staffing, and ceded significant authorities to it in the areas of operational oversight, training and accreditation, the sharing of operational experience and provision of assistance to plants in need. As the former President and CEO of INPO, Admiral Ellis will discuss the requirements for effective self-regulation, specifically, and consider the issues surrounding broader employment of the concept.

About the Speaker: James O. Ellis Jr. is an Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a CISAC Affiliate. He retired as president and chief executive officer of the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations (INPO), a self-regulatory nonprofit located in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 18, 2012. In 2004, Admiral Ellis completed a thirty-nine-year US Navy career as commander of the United States Strategic Command. In this role, he was responsible for the global command and control of US strategic and space forces. 

His sea service included carrier-based tours with three fighter squadrons and command of the USS Abraham Lincoln, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. His shore assignments included commander in chief, US Naval Forces, Europe, and Allied Forces, Southern Europe, where he led United States and NATO forces in combat and humanitarian operations during the 1999 Kosovo crisis. 

Ellis holds two masters’ degrees in aerospace engineering and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.