Abstracts for the “Evolutionary Medicine Conference: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Health and Disease” at the University of Zurich, Switzerland (July 30–August 1, 2015)
Author(s): Kaspar Staub, Nicole Bender, Paul Ewald, and Frank Rühli
Abstract
In summer 2015, the “Evolutionary Medicine Conference 2015: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Health and Disease” takes place at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Switzerland. This international conference is the first of its kind in Europe and brings together eight distinguished keynote speakers from all over the world as well as experts from different disciplines (including medicine, anthropology, molecular/evolutionary biology, paleopathology, archeology, history, psychology, epidemiology, and other fields) to debate the evolutionary origins of diseases and on how the knowledge of the past informs the present and the future. In addition, the conference programme includes round tables on how to bring Evolutionary Medicine into the medical curriculum and clinical practice, and on the future and the challenges of the field. This single article contains all accepted abstracts for keynote lectures, minisymposia, oral and poster presentations (peer-reviewed and accepted by the scientific committee as of May 2015). This collection provides a sense of the breadth of evolutionary medicine in this year of its development. But it also brings into focus the challenge of applying and integrating the wide variety of research areas and perspectives using the conceptual framework provided by evolutionary thinking.
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