Nerd Nite Brighton 33 18/8/16 – Massive data, missing organs and the Oympics

We hope you all enjoyed double Nerd Nite July last month. It’s August and we are back to enlighten you once more. Hosting his last Nerd Nite Brighton this month is founder Partha Das so please come and join us for the usual cake, drinks, quizzing and merriment.

Our talks:

1. The algorithm will see you now: big data and the future of healthcare – Ben Bray

Our health records contains some of the most personal and intimate information about ourselves, but as healthcare (finally) moves into the digital age, what are the technological, social and ethical implications of a world rich in electronic health data? From medical artificial intelligence and an internet of healthy things, to new challenges to privacy and data ownership, we will explore the ways that big data is transforming health and healthcare.

Dr Ben Bray is a public health doctor and research director for the Sentinel Stroke National Audit Programme. Based at the Farr Institute of Health Informatics at University College London, he works on new uses of data analytics and visualisation in healthcare

2. Scanning for gold: what makes an Olympic athlete? – Malcolm Johnston

In his talk, Malcolm will explore the anatomy and physiology that makes an Olympic athlete ‘superhuman,’ and how modern imaging techniques can show why an athlete’s body is adapted to perform at the highest level. Using MRI scanning to demonstrate how the body changes with training across both power and endurance events, Malcolm will discuss how measurements of different parameters are used to optimise performance. Are we all potential Olympic athletes or are some people just destined for greatness?

Dr Malcolm Johnston is a consultant radiologist in Brighton specialising in the diagnosis and treatment of disease using modern imaging techniques. He is a qualified skiing instructor and competes at downhill mountain biking but has never come close to Olympic level sport. In fact he often struggles in the parents race on sports day.

3. Believing in life after death – why everyone should be an organ donor – Hannah Maple

Despite living in Crawley, Hannah managed to get into King’s College London Medical School and is now a transplant surgeon. Having graduated in 2007 she pursued a surgical career before taking a break from clinical work in 2011 to undertake a PhD. Based at Guy’s Hospital, London her research examined the psychological aspects of donating kidneys from the perspective of the donor and sought to understand more about what donors get out of the process. Why would someone want to give up an organ? She has recently conducted the world’s largest study of non-directed altruistic organ donors (people who donate their organs to strangers) and will tonight discuss her work alongside other ethical and legal controversies in the transplantation of organs.


Doors at 7.30pm for an 8pm start downstairs at Patterns

Tickets £4 (£3 Student/65+ nerds) from here – book early to avoid disappointment

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