Science Question Time event at King's College School Wimbledon on 13 March 2020 on the theme, Living Greener Living Longer

2. Sir Paul Nurse, Director of the Francis Crick Institute, Winner of the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine 2001, supports Science Question Time and sends this
message.
Young people sometimes think of science as a lot of facts that need to be learned to do
well in exams, but actually scientific discovery is a creative pursuit, that starts with asking
questions and challenging prevailing wisdom. Many new types of jobs and careers will
be created by science, through the curiosity of individuals inventing new ways of solving
problems.
The great strides we are seeing in dark matter, human evolution, data science, artificial
intelligence, genomics and other technologies like quantum computing are just some of
the things exciting scientists, engineers and designers today- but new questions around
ethics, diversity and humanity are just as important, addressing how science is a force
for good. We need to inspire young people to see themselves as the inventors of the
future world one they are happy to live in.
….
‘
‘

3. Claire Steves
Senior Lecturer, King’s College
London
Lynne Cox
Associate Professor
Department of Biochemistry
Oxford University
Anton Derlyatka
CEO and Co-Founder
Sweatcoin
Holger Pirk
Assistant Professor
Department of Computing
Imperial College
Shakir Mohamed
Scientist and Community Organiser
DeepMind
Dr John Collins (Chair)
Disruptive Technologist,
Commercialisation Director,
SynbiCITE
Imperial College

4. Living Greener Living Longer
Presentations

5. Claire Steves

6. Our future growing older:
what we can do now
Claire Steves
Consultant Geriatrician GSTT, Senior Clinical Lecturer
KCL

7. Three Eras of Healthcare
“Preservative” “Diagnostic” “Integrated”
Infection & starvation Disease Homeostenosis

8. Immediate challenges
Translating
Gero-science
Engaging
older people in research
Reducing the
socio-health divide
Larger political environment

9. Ageing Rebellion
Ready made poly pill:
physical activity
Green and healthy diet“My-tech” medicine

10. Lynne Cox

11. Can we and should we
interfere with the
biology of ageing?
Lynne Cox

12. Why bother about ageing?
Ageing = the progressive loss of bodily
function over time that increases the
probability of death Data: Barnett et al The Lancet (2012) 380, 37-43

13. Ageing acts on the body’s building blocks - cells
37 trillion
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/there-are-37.2-trillion-cells-in-your-body-4941473/
Image: https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/wessex-auction-rooms/catalogue-id-srwess10090/lot-95859267-6f76-4b90-8971-a5b1014d7615
Changed gene
expression and cell
function (‘tap left on’)
Inflammation
and tissue
damage
Resistant to cell
death (‘zombie’
cells)
Stop dividing (poor
repair/ wound
healing)
Fail to recycle worn out parts so
clog up with rubbish
X
SENESCENCE

14. What can we do?
X
mTOR inhibitors
Senolytics

15. Data: Hannah Walters, Lynne Cox
Lifespan: old human cells
80
85
90
95
100
105
110
115
0 100 200 300
DMS
O
PULS
ED
Control
+drug
senescence
Amyloid in
hippocampus
Blood flow
control + drugAlzheimer’s
Richardson et al (2014) Exp Gerontol 68: 51–58
Anti-senescence drugs improve health and increase lifespan
Cellage(CPD)
days in culture
before
after

16. Infectious disease
Non-infectious disease
Cancer
Individual age-related diseases
age
Health
Gradual loss of health over time
Lifespan?
age
Health
The ‘square curve’ – health until (close to) death
Healthspan?
People should not be
blamed for poor
health in later life
Cancer = disease when
body cells ‘go bad’: we
treat cancer
Senescence = disease
when body cells ‘go
bad’: we should treat
senescence
Senescence/ageing process
Should we treat senescence?

17. Senolytic therapies are likely
to be dangerous in in
pregnancy and throughout
child development
• sensible exercise
• good diet
• sleep
• optimism
• friends and good company

18. Current:
Adam Rolt
Thibault Teissier
Sebastian Aguiar
Christopher Whiteman
Lukeriya Zharov
Lynne Cox
Private donor
John Fell Fund
EPA Cephalosporin fund
Glenn Foundation
Alumni:
Hannah Walters
Sylwia Deneka-
Hannemann
Penelope Mason
Ivan Boubriak
Ralph Lasala
Hayley Lees
Stephanie Gover
Anitha Nair
Sara Maxwell
Friends and good company

19. Holger Pirk

20. WHAT IS DATA MANAGEMENT?
And why should I care?

21. PROBLEM 1: EFFICIENCY

22. FOUR YEAR OLD
DEVICES…
…struggle with the simplest task

23. THE SOLUTION…
• …is research…
• techniques and algorithms to
process data more efficiently
• …and education
• I teach performance
engineering: making software
fast

24. PROBLEM 2: CONSISTENCY

25. DISTRIBUTED
DATA…
…needs to be kept in sync to allow
remote collaboration
CAP Theorem: The spot in the
middle is empty

26. THE SOLUTION…
…is research and teaching (and CRDTs)

27. BOTTOM LINE:
• Data is essential to modern society
• Our research and teaching
• Enables new data-driven applications
• Makes existing ones greener

28. Shakir Mohamed

30. Anton Derlyatka

49. Questions