University of Chicago lecture series to highlight prostate cancer

University of Chicago lecture series to highlight prostate cancer

December 29, 2004

One in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer throughout his lifetime, and one in eight of these men will die of prostate cancer. Learn about prostate cancer development and treatment in a series of free public lectures at the University of Chicago beginning Saturday, Jan. 15, 2005. The lectures will review essential aspects of cancer biology, describe principles of environmental toxins and heredity in cancer, unravel novel technologies that enable us to analyze and manipulate genes and proteins, and discuss novel treatments targeted to properties of cancer cells.

This series of eight lectures, titled "Everything You Need to Know About Prostate Cancer: Basic Research, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment," will be held Saturday mornings from 11 a.m. to noon from Jan. 15 through March 5 in Room 106 of the Kersten Physics Teaching Center at 5720 S. Ellis Ave. Donald Vander Griend, Ph.D., a post-doctoral fellow from the University of Chicago's department of surgery/urology section, will deliver the lectures.

This is the third annual lecture series, which is intended to make science accessible to a general audience and to convey the excitement of new discoveries in the biological sciences. The lectures are named for Charles B. Huggins, M.D., the first director of the Ben May Institute who was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for work published in 1941 showing that deprivation of testosterone can halt prostate cancer.

Lecture topics are scheduled as followed:

  • Jan. 15: The Problem, The Prostate, The Man
  • Jan. 22: What Is Cancer?
  • Jan. 29: The Causes of Prostate Cancer
  • Feb. 5: Diagnosing Prostate Cancer
  • Feb. 12: Treating Prostate Cancer
  • Feb. 19: Prostate Cancer Metastasis
  • Feb. 26: Hormones and Prostate Cancer
  • March 5: Emerging and Novel Treatment Techniques -- Hope for the Future

All of the lectures are free and open to the public. For more information, call (773) 834-3899.