>> Good morning, can you all hear me?
Welcome all to the 10th Annual Boot Camp
for science writers, I never thought,
that we'd reach the 10 year mark with this event.
We began 10 years ago in a little room,
at the School of Medicine in Baltimore,
with just a few attendees.
Soon thereafter, we moved to the SIS campus in Washington,
and had 40 to 50 attendees.
Then we soon outgrew that venue,
and for the past several years,
have been in the ballroom in the National Press Club.
A fantastic location with great AV support
and accommodation for the hundred or more,
attendees that will be with us today.
I'm Stephen Desiderio, and I'm the Director
for the Institute Of Basic Biomedical Sciences,
at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
It's our pleasure to sponsor this annual event,
which gives journalists and other writers, communicators,
and opportunity to spend a day learning from our experts,
and seeing them demonstrate how
basic science concepts drive clinical advances.
Why do we do this boot camp every year?
First and foremost, because science is nuance,
and the stories don't always capture the nuance of science.
Furthermore, with the deadlines that you face,
it's challenging to get all the information
you need to cover a story.
Then I think it's a good idea once in a while,
to spend the day digging deeper into an area.
That's true for all of us, whether we're communicating
science professionally or not.
And lastly because we at Hopkins,
want to help you get the story right.
Now, perhaps more than ever, communicating about science
is fundamental for the survival of science,
particularly in the United States.
In this environment science, scientific fact is devalued.
Research funding continues to be precarious,
and health care, of course, is uneven, it's rationed.
As Director of the IBBS, The Basic Science's Institute,
my goal today is to showcase for you,
how basic research affects everybody's health.
There is increasing pressure on us as scientists,
to focus on outcomes and patient application,
but without the pipeline of basic discovery,
therapies won't be realized.
Many of today's most spectacular treatments,
are based on discoveries made 30 or more years ago.
No where is that more evident,
than in the explosion of immunologic therapies for cancer,
that have begun to appear in the past several years.
Based on discoveries that as a young man I witnessed,
in Boston and elsewhere, 32 years ago.
And even as we talk about translational acceleration,
most medical advances, if not all of them,
will still come from basic research.
I'd like to say a few words about Johns Hopkins.
It's a behemoth, we operate six academic
and community hospitals.
We have more than 40 community sites.
Almost 3000 full time faculties,
and more than 1200 part time faculties.
Every year the University of Johns Hopkins,
ranks number one in Federal funding for research,
and each year the School of Medicine
ranks second in NIH funding,
at 462 million dollars, currently.
We have more than 1200 medical
and doctoral students at Johns Hopkins,
and that is the engine that drives our science.
It's been an honor for me to do basic research
at Johns Hopkins for the past 34 or 35 years.
At our institute we have nine departments,
that focus on the fundamentals of science.
More than half a dozen interdisciplinary centers,
that bring together experts from different specialties,
from the basic science and the clinical science.
More than half of the School of Medicine's
graduate students do their research,
in our basic science laboratories.
And nearly all of the fundamental pre-clinical courses,
for School of Medicine medical students,
are taught by our faculty.
So essentially, our institute is
an outstanding source for biomedical expertise
and I invite you to take advantage of us.
For those of you who have attended past events,
thank you for coming again, we can't emphasize how much
we want this event to be for you.
You've picked all of the topics so far every year.
Generative medicine, epigenetics,
the genomic revolution, the brain heart disease,
diabetes and immunotherapy.
After this event you'll receive an email,
a survey, please fill it out.
We review each survey and we use it to choose future topics.
This year's topic is the price we pay,
for growing old in America.
According to the Census Bureau, by the year 2030,
one in every five US residents will be 65 and older.
By 2035 older people will outnumber children.
The graying of America also means,
that we have huge populations
of people with chronic conditions,
and this accounts for a large share
of our national health care budget.
So the question is, are we ready for this bubble?
Are we ready for the largest ever aging population on earth?
Solving this means we need to uncover
the mysteries of age related diseases,
repair disparities and health outcomes,
provide access to care, and mitigate the rising cost
of health care and medication.
We've lined up an impressive variety
of speakers for today's event.
You'll hear from basic scientists,
who study the basic molecular and biological processes,
that underlie aging, as well as from clinician scientists,
who manage illness and develop new therapies.
Through the early afternoon each of our experts
will give presentations for about 10 minutes,
and you'll have the opportunity
to ask them questions about their talks
in the remaining five minutes of the time slot.
Please keep the questions succinct,
and in the form of a question,
so that we can keep the program moving.
Then later this afternoon we'll have two panel discussions,
filled with a deep bench of experts,
who are going to discuss the cost of drugs,
and how to improve health care overall.
You'll have the opportunity to post questions
to these panels as well.
But don't just restrict your questions to those times.
Most of our experts, or at least some of them,
will be joining us for almost the whole day,
so feel free to talk to them at the breaks, at lunch,
and you're welcome to follow-up.
They'll welcome your follow-up emails,
for interviews after today.
We have one programming change.
Doctor Mark Matson was supposed to talk at 12.30 today,
about fasting and exercise mechanisms.
He can't join us today, but if you'd like
to follow-up with him for an interview,
just email our media team,
our media team is shown on the slide.
Many of them are here today, their name tags read staff,
their areas of expertise and their contact
information are listed in the program.
As you listen to today's presentations,
our Twitter audience is following us.
Yes, we have a Twitter audience and it's sizable,
following us at Hopkins Med News, use #jhmbootcamp,
I think at my age that's the first time
I've ever used hashtag in a sentence,
to follow the conversation today and join the discussion.
With that I'll stop my presentation,
and we can begin the body of the event.
So to start off the day, it's my pleasure
to introduce one of the world's
foremost experts on aging, Jeremy Walston.
Jeremy is a Professor of Medicine,
and Co-Director of the Biology of Healthy Aging program,
in the division of Geriatric Medicine
and Gerontology at Johns Hopkins.
Jeremy has developed the most commonly used
definition of frailty, and identified pathways
that influence frailty and decline,
among our aging populations.
This will be the focus of his talk today.
Jeremy, thank you very much.