Harry Potter: The Science Behind the Magic
Sponsored by LBC and the Mid-Michigan MSU Alumni Association

Featuring LBC Assistant Visiting Professor Dr. Mark Waddell

Free to MSUAA members - Free Parking
Reservations Required: midmievents@yahoo.com

Children wear your costumes!

Are you interested in graduate work and/or a career in Epidemiology and Public Health?

Lyman Briggs College proudly hosts

Dr. Claudia Holzman
MSU Professor of Epidemiology

Dr. Holzman will share a brief presentation on the field of epidemiology, her career journey, as well as answer your questions about epidemiology and public health.

Dr. Holzman has earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, a Master’s of Public Health degree, as well as a PhD in Epidemiology. She has been involved in reproductive and perinatal research, primarily focusing on the areas of preterm delivery, brain injury in neonates, birth defects, and vaginal infections. In her earlier research, Dr. Holzman led the feasibility study that resulted in the establishment of a state-wide birth defects registry in Michigan.

Movie night will be screening South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho’s 2006 monster/environmental disaster movie THE HOST. This film traces the misfortunes of a small business-owning Korean family threatened by an emerging global military industrial complex. The film is a kind of homage to the classic Japanese monster movie, and showcases a really great monster.

A brief discussion will follow the screening.

Ellen Velie, Department of Epidemiology
Breast Cancer Incidence Rates in Young ‘Black’ and ‘White’ Women in the US: What Evidence is There for the Genetic Hypothesis?

Race is generally conceded to be a social construct that categorizes populations into social hierarchies. Overwhelming evidence reveals that race determines changing environmental exposures over generations, which in turn affect individual biology and consequently health. Yet the assumption persists in medical science that race primarily affects health through fixed, inherited genetics. Recent advances in genetic technologies have identified differences in gene prevalences between populations categorized by self-reported race. These differences, however, have not been found to explain racial differences in common complex diseases.

The incidence of breast cancer in women younger than forty is currently 52% higher in Black compared to White women in the United States, and Black women have a higher prevalence of tumors with the worst prognosis. In this presentation, the specific example of racial differences in breast cancer incidence rates in young women will be used to investigate assumptions in the medical literature about inherited genetics and health disparities.

Flyer is also available online at http://www.gencen.msu.edu/documents/Ellen_Velie_flyer.pdf.