Location: Main Auditorium, St Paul University, Ottawa, Canada.
Third Event Commemorating HBS Centennial.

Introductory Address by Dr. David Butler-Jones, President, Public Health Agency of Canada

Presentation #1- Professor Meir Jonathan Stampfer, MD, DrPH: Etiology of Chronic Diseases with a Particular Focus on Disease Prevention.
Dr. Stampfer will talk mostly about primary prevention of heart disease and other important chronic diseases. His research is broadly concerned with the etiology of chronic diseases, with particular focus on nutrition, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. With colleagues in the Departments of Epidemiology and Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health, and at Channing Laboratory and the Division of Preventive Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Stampfer is closely involved in four large prospective cohort studies (two health studies of 121,700 and 116,678 nurses; 51,259 health professionals follow-up study and two studies of the health of 22,071physicians). In each of these studies, participants are surveyed every two years to gather information on diet, smoking, physical activity, medications, health screening behaviour, and other variables. The researchers also ascertain the new occurrence of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other serious illnesses, including diabetes, fractures, kidney stones, and pre-cancerous lesions. In addition, Dr. Stampfer leads several NIH-funded projects to assess nutritional and biochemical markers of cancer risk among the 15,000 blood samples collected as part of the Physicians’ Health Study. All of these large-scale studies are continuing.

Speaker#1: Professor Meir Jonathan Stampfer, MD, DrPH.
Professor Stampfer is a member of the Faculty Council of Harvard School of Public Health and Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition, a department he chaired between 2000 and 2007. He is, concurrently, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Member of the Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center, Member of the Joint Committee on Status of Women, and Co-Director of the Developmental Projects Program, SPORE in Prostate Cancer.

An Invited Nominator for Nobel Prize in Medicine, Prof. Stampfer is also Adjunct Professor at the Karolinska Institutet, the distinguished Swedish organization where the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded. Prof. Stampfer is a Reviewer for Canada Innovation
Foundation. At the National Institute of Health (NIH), he currently chairs the member conflict study section;and is Panel Member of the State-of-the-Science Conference on Cesarean Delivery on Maternal Request; and an Invited Speaker to the State-of-the-Science Conference on Multivitamin and Multi-mineral. He chaired NIH Special Emphasis Panel, Cancer and Environmental Epidemiology; the Epidemiology and Disease Control-2 Study Section; two Data Safety Monitoring Boards (NIH trial of Vitamins B and E). He has been a member of the Grant Review Committee of the American Cancer Society; the Advisory Board of Gotham Cancer Prize; the NIH Executive Committee on Vitamins in Stroke Prevention; NIH Epidemiology and Disease Control Study Section; and the U.S. Government (USDA and HHS) Advisory Committee on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. He consults with the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment and the American College of Physicians.

Prof. Stampfer is a fellow of several medical societies. He is a member of the editorial boards of several journals (American Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Journal of Women’s Health and American Journal of Clinical Nutrition). He also served in that capacity in the European and North American Menopause Journals, the Journal of the British Menopause Society, the American Fertility Society Menopause Publication, Clinical Chemistry, and Epidemiology. He was a Technical Reviewer for the New England Journal of Medicine. Since 1981, Prof. Stampfer has been for several years the most-cited researcher in clinical medicine, ranking first in epidemiology, and either first or third overall (Science Watch, Institute for Scientific Information). In 2005, he was identified as the most highly cited scientist in the field of clinical medicine over the previous decade. He is a recipient of the NIH National Research Service Award, Jones Prize for Logic and Philosophy of Science (Columbia University), Frost Award of the American Public Health Association, Senior Investigator Award in Antioxidant Research, Comité Français de Coordination des Recherches sur l'Athérosclérose et le Cholestérol (France), Visiting Professor at Ben-Gurion University in Israel and Honorary Doctor of Medicine at the University of Athens.

Presentation #2- Professor (Emeritus) Serge Carrière: Research-Based High-Concentration Probiotics.
Research-based probiotics are live microorganisms (friendly bacteria) that are clinically proven to naturally help regulate the digestive system. In its Family Health Guide, Harvard Medical School assets that "a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that you can treat and even prevent some illnesses with foods and supplements containing certain kinds of live bacteria." Research scientists (clinicians, microbiologists, immunologists and nutritionists) are further advancing our understanding of probiotics and exploring, at the molecular level, the changes in the body, particularly in the gut flora, with human studies, backed up by in vitro or animal work to validate process and outcomes. In the meantime, an increasing number of consumers have incorporated probiotics into their diet as a natural defence against disease. Some health-care practitioners recommend probiotics to patients on antibiotic therapy, as a supplementary protection against infection.

Dr. Carrière’s presentation will focus on research-based products with high concentration of probiotics; thus, excluding juice and dairy blends currently available in supermarkets. He will demonstrate why the effect of probiotics on the improvement of human health should be validated by double blinded, randomized controlled clinical trials (RCT). He will also present an independent study conducted at Maisonneuve Rosemont Hospital, which demonstrated the efficacy of research-based probiotics in the prevention of antibiotic associated diarrhea (AAD). The importance of conducting the clinical trials using the final probiotic product, which is readily available in the market, for the proper guidance of the consumer will be also discussed.

Speaker#2: Professor (Emeritus) Serge Carrière.
Professor Serge Carrière has conducted extensive laboratory and clinical research on the efficacy of probiotics and will share with us the results of his clinical trials. He is a leading specialist in internal medicine and nephrology, former Harvard Medical School Research Fellow, Vice Rector and Past Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Montréal where he administered the medical school and hospital and increased the medical research annual budget from $40 million to $140 million. He is a recipient of the Order of Canada and of many scientific and medical awards and honours including the G. Malcolm Brown Award. He has held several prestigious positions within the medical community as a Fellow and a Member of the Executive Committee of the Medical Research Council of Canada, President of the Quebec Health Research Fund, President of Louis Pasteur Canadian Foundation (CFLP)and Scientific Advisor of McGill University's Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital. A champion of academic freedom as an essential lever to fundamental medical and drug discovery, Dr. Carrière has played an instrumental role in biomedical education, research and biotechnology.

Registration Instructions:
Space is limited. Register and securely pay online now at www.harvardottawa.org. Presentation fee: $15
for adults, $6 for high-school students. Add GST. Fee includes cocktail refreshments.
Please note only individuals who register online will be admitted.
The net proceeds will be donated to the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO).