Science Pub

Thursday, March 28: 6:00pm-8:00pm
Galway Room in the Lebanon Salt hill pub
2 West Park Street Lebanon, NH

The state of New Hampshire has the second highest rate of opioid-related overdoses in the country, so what is it that makes opioids so addictive? Are there patterns of behavior we can change to avoid becoming addicted, or are some of us genetically predisposed to addictive behaviors? Do some of us simply find it harder to quit, even when we know how damaging our behaviors are?

For the March Science Pub we bring together four eminent research-practitioners from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth to help us understand what addiction means, and how practitioners and researchers are working together with communities to address addiction behaviors. 

Speakers:
Wilder Doucette received an MD and a PhD in neuroscience from the University of Colorado and trained as a Psychiatrist at Dartmouth. He is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Geisel School of Medicine. His basic research examines how measures of brain activity can be used to individually tailor addiction treatment. He integrates this work with the Psychiatry Department’s Addiction Treatment Program to provide informed clinical care and improved patient outcomes.

Dr. Julia Frew is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine physician who directs the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Moms in Recovery Program and the Center for Addiction Recovery in Pregnancy and Parenting.  Dr. Frew attended the Brown-Dartmouth Program in Medical Education and completed her psychiatry residency training at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, where she is currently Associate Director of the Psychiatry residency training program. Her work focuses on the care of pregnant and postpartum women with psychiatric illness and substance use disorders. 

Daisy Goodman is a nurse-midwife and doctor of nursing practice who directs integrated women's health services at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Moms in Recovery Program.  She received certification in nurse-midwifery at the Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, and her Doctorate at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions School of Nursing.   Her clinical practice and research focuses on increasing access to treatment for rural women, and implementation of evidence-based maternity care for pregnant and postpartum women with substance use disorders.

Dr. Sarah Lord is a clinical-developmental psychologist and health services researcher.  She directs the Dissemination and Implementation Core of the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Geisel School of Medicine.  Dr. Lord received her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder and completed a clinical internship and postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Her research focuses on understanding how to optimize implementation of evidence-based treatment for substance use and mental health conditions, with particular emphasis on ways to leverage digital technologies to improve access to, and delivery of, evidence-based care.  

Please note our temporary location for this month's Science Pub: we will start at 6pm at the West Lebanon location

Current electronics and communications rely on electrons and binary computing. In order to process more information faster, new technologies are being developed through quantum physics. You might think this is a branch of science utterly removed from your daily lives, but you are in fact already probably using technology that has been improved by our knowledge of quantum physics. Computers, semi-conductors, lasers all use quantum technology, but what about the future? Come to this month's science pub to learn how you can play a part in the quantum revolution.

About our speakers:

James Whitfield graduated from Morehouse College (B.S.) and obtained his doctorate in Chemical Physics from Harvard in 2011. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Vienna, he now an Assistant Professor in the  Department of Physics and Astronomy at Dartmouth College. Research interests are focused on novel computing approaches to electronic structure with an emphasis on quantum computation.  Interests include the theoretical limitations of quantum simulation, improving quantum algorithms and addressing the longstanding question of what today's quantum computation can tell us about fermionic systems of applied interest.

Dhrubo Jyoti is a recent Ph.D. graduate in theoretical physics specializing in cosmology from Dartmouth's Department of Physics and Astronomy. Dhrubo published research on early Universe cosmology, specifically the Inflationary paradigm and the Big Bang, the first tiny fraction of a second of the universe. Under the supervision of Professor Robert Caldwell, he developed, as part of his thesis, mathematical formalism for observationally testing Einstein's theory of gravity using strong gravitational lensing phenomena on extra-galactic scales. A publication based on this work is in preparation and will appear in the near future. In his spare time, Dhrubo likes to play instrumental music (Sitar), train with weights at the gym and occasionally go salsa dancing. He will be speaking about his work, as well as the recent revolutionary advancement in direct detection of gravitational waves, literally a 'sixth sense' for observing the universe.

Every month we collect our Science Pub evaluations and every month we see CRISPR as a topic suggestion; you've waited long enough!

Come to January's Science Pub to learn about this fascinating and cutting edge gene editing technology.

You may have heard several stories in the news recently related to the relatively recent breakthroughs in gene editing thanks to CRISPR, or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats. This technology has the potential to treat genetically-defined diseases and we have three experts to discuss what this might look like for cancer and autism.

Come to the January pub to learn just what Clustered Regularly Interspaced Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) is all about.

Discussion Leaders:

Dr. Michael Cole is a Professor in the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology in the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He has spent over 35 yrs studying the mutations that drive cancer. He was the first to introduce CRISPR technology into the Dartmouth scientific community.

Bryan Luikart, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular and Systems Biology at The Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.  Dr. Luikart received a BS in Molecular and Cell Biology from Texas A&M Universty (1999), a PhD in Neuroscience from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center under Luis Parada (2004), and completed postdoctoral training under Gary Westbrook at the Vollum Institute (2010). Dr. Luikart joined the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2011.  Since joining the faculty at Geisel, Dr. Luikart studies how dysfunction of the autism predisposition gene,  PTEN, impacts neuronal function.  Further, the Luikart laboratory has developed CRISPR technology to target numerous genes that have been associated with autism in patients.  In collaboration with Steve Fiering at Geisel they have generate novel gene knockout mice to model autism.

Elizabeth Sergison is the director of the newly established CRISPR Core at Dartmouth, a subset of the genetics and molecular biology shared resource.  She received her B.A. in biological sciences from Mount Holyoke College and Ph.D. in molecular and systems biology from Dartmouth College.  Her research involves using genome-wide CRISPR knockout screens to identify new tumor suppressor genes in breast cancer. 

These public events are open to all and are held at:

Salt Hill Pub, 2 W. Park St., Lebanon, NH from 6:00-8:00 pm. 

Science Pubs run during the fall (October and November) and spring (February, March and April, weather permitting).  

Based on the Science Cafe model developed in Europe in the 1990s, Science Pubs at Salt Hill bring scientists and the public together for informal discussion around topics relevant to your world. A Science Pub is not a lecture but is a good conversation. Enjoy your refreshments or dinner while engaging with your community and local scientists and experts.

Please call ahead to the Salt Hill Pub for any potential weather-related cancellations.  Science Pubs meet on the last Thursday of the given month.

Brought to you by Dartmouth Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies Outreach and Salt Hill Pub, Lebanon.

Science Pubs are recorded, created into podcasts, and published on the Steaming Piles of Science website, where you can also catch up on any topics you missed.

More Science Cafes in NH and VT: Science Cafe NH, Science on Tap. For More Information about Science Cafes visit: Science Cafes.