Profs and Pints Online presents: “Infections, Vaccines, Evolution and Medicine,” with Rui Diogo, associate professor of anatomy at Howard University’s College of Medicine and resource faculty member at George Washington University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology.

[ This talk will remain available in recorded form at the link given here for tickets and access. ]

Evolutionary medicine is a rapidly growing field that uses knowledge from many fields of science, including anthropology and evolutionary biology, to better understand, treat and, importantly, prevent disease. It’s offering an understanding of why our bodies are what they are, which allows us to have a better understanding of ‘imperfections’ that make us particularly vulnerable to infections, pandemics, illnesses or sport injuries. It factors prominently into discussions of antibiotics, auto-immune diseases, vaccines, obesity, and “poop treatments” to build the immunity of babies. One of its more innovative aspects is that it shows that, because life is made of trade-offs, we are constantly 'paying the price' for the major 'revolutions' of our history, with bipedalism leading to varicose veins, agriculture leaving us susceptible to pandemics and famines, and industrialism fostering hypertension and obesity.

Unfortunately, despite all of this, evolutionary biology remains on the fringes of pre-medical and medical education in the United States, where medical students are not required to accept the theory of evolution at all, and many don’t. Without understanding the evolutionary origin of the various organs, and their links, knowledge about it, and its diseases, cannot be truly achieved. Moreover, such a lack of knowledge also affects discussions on the use of new genetic data - often by people without adequate knowledge and scientific background - to try "enhance" the human body and build "superhumans", and revives old prejudices by trying to justify discriminatory treatment of immigrants and other groups or to blame others for our diseases.

Professor Diogo, a Profs and Pints crowd favorite, returns to the stage to give us an understanding of evolutionary medicine and its implications. He’ll discuss how it factors into worries about the impact of overmedication, a huge problem in the United States. He’ll talk about how it has played a role in medical developments such as the growing reluctance of doctors to give antibiotics to babies and the practice of deliberating exposing babies to fecal bacteria from their mothers.  Paradoxically, some of the trends it had inspired in recent decades have had to be reversed in response to the current pandemic and the need to contain it through justified measures such as promotion of the constant use of hand sanitizers.

Attending this talk will leave you with a much greater understanding of medicine and your own body.

Profs & Pints Online: Infections, Vaccines, Evolution and Medicine