Lecture Series

Lecture 29: Symptoms and Causes of Vitamin D Deficiency and Treatment Options


*** Cancelled Due to Severe Weather Conditions ***

Date & Time: Thursday August 12, 2010 – 7:30 PM

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 ( Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Dr. Morvarid Alaghmand

Synopsis:

“Once foods were fortified with vitamin D and rickets appeared to have been conquered, many health care professionals thought the major health problems resulting from vitamin D deficiency had been resolved. However, rickets can be considered the tip of the vitamin D deficiency iceberg. In fact, vitamin D deficiency remains common in children and adults.”
                                               Michael F. Holick, M.D., Ph.D. 

During childhood, vitamin D deficiency causes growth retardation and skeletal deformities. Vitamin D deficiency in adults can precipitate or exacerbate osteopenia and osteoporosis, can cause osteomalacia (bone softness) and muscle weakness, and increase risk of chronic disorders such as cancer.

This lecture will talk about vitamin D and its metabolism, symptoms and causes of vitamin D deficiency and treatment options.

 
About the Speaker:

Dr. Morvarid Alaghmand was graduated from National Organization for Development of Exceptional Talents (known as SAMPAD) in Tehran. She studied medicine at Tehran University of Medical Sciences from 1996 to 2003.  She performed her Internal Medicine training (residency) at Interfaith Medical Center, affiliated with SUNY Downstate in New York.

Before starting residency, she was involved in research at Interventional Radiology Department in George Washington University Hospital for one year. She is one of the authors of a textbook called “Image-Guided Interventions”. She researched on bone and skeletal disorders and vitamin D deficiency on Asian population referred to Interfaith Medical Center clinic.

Dr. Alaghmand has been practicing as an Internist at Riverside Medical Group in Maryland since July of 2008. She is a diplomat of American Board of Internal Medicine, and is a member of American College of Physicians.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public

 

Lecture 28: Gender Equality and Economic Growth

Date & Time: Thursday July 8, 2010 – 7:30 PM

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 ( Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Ms. Nadereh Chamlou

Synopsis:

Gender equality is often advocated from a rights-based approach, leaving many with the perception that it gender equality is for the sake of being nice to women. But, gender equality is far more important for higher and more sustainable economic growth, which is what every nation needs. Advancing gender equality is more urgent and for business reasons and any other consideration. In this presentation will present some recent research and where Iran stands vis-a-vis peer countries.

About the Speaker:

Nadereh Chamlou is Senior Advisor to the Chief Economist for the Middle East and North Africa Region of the World Bank. In her 29 years with the World Bank, she has worked in technical, advisory, and managerial positions across the organization in such areas as economic management, private and financial sector development, infrastructure and environment, corporate governance, and the knowledge economy. Her experience also extends to Latin America, East Asia and Pacific, and Eastern Europe. She co-authored a World Bank flagship report, “Corporate Governance: A Framework for Implementation,” in 1999, and was co-founder of the World Bank/OECD-sponsored Global Corporate Governance Forum, which she headed from 1998 to 2000. She was the principal author of “Gender and Development in the Middle East and North Africa Region–Women in the Public Sphere” in 2003, and of “The Environment for Women’s Entrepreneurship in the Middle East and North Africa Region” in 2008.

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Tunis-based Center for Arab Women’s Training and Research (CAWTAR); a founding member of the Steering Committee and the Advisory Committee of the Gender Economic Research and Policy Analysis (GERPA) initiative and Chair of the Friends of the Margaret McNamara Memorial Fund, a scholarship fund for women from developing countries.  She is Adjust Professor at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Policy and a member of the International Steering Committee of Nyenrode, The Netherlands Business University.  She was a member of the scientific committee of the Dutch Gender Task Force–24orMore.  She is a graduate of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and the Graduate School for Economics.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public

Nadereh Chamlou

Lecture 27: Embryonic Stem Cells,what are they and what are they good for?

Date & Time: Thursday June 10, 2010 – 7:30 PM

Location: Montgomery Community College (Rockville Campus) – Humanity Building (HU), Conference Room 009 ( Get Directions, Campus Map )

Speaker: Ms. Tahereh Tavakoli

Synopsis:

Embryonic stem (ES) cells are derived from the undifferentiated cells of the inner cell mass (ICM) of a developing embryo. These cells can be grown in culture, have the capacity for virtually unlimited self-renewal and can differentiate under the proper conditions into various tissues such as muscles or nerves. However, the possible differences in proliferation and differentiation capabilities among independently-derived embryonic stem cells (ESCs) are not well-known. Since stem cells are new resource and essential for successful cell replacement therapies; it is also essential to understand how the inherited variation in the sex, stage, quality and genetic background of embryos. Also, the environmental influence such as derivation methods and passage procedures can affect the ability of ES cell lines to self-renew and to differentiate. To address this question, a side-by-side comparison between three hESC lines NIH registered hES cell lines I3 (TE03), I6 (TE06) and BG01V was made under the same culture conditions that may reduce influence from environmental and methodological factors to a minimum level. Then the differences we found between the three cell lines may be due to the genetic variation and epigenetically inherited alterations from previous culture history. 

 
About the Speaker:

Tahereh Tavakoli is a scientist who works for the American Type Culture Collection.  She has a master’s degree in science and she has worked in cell biology, developmental biology and molecular biology. Her main research interests have been focused on developmental biology, particularly in stem cell biology and stem cell-based tissue engineering. Over the last several years she accomplished several major research projects and published several papers such as the Role of ECM in directed neural differentiation of human ES cells, Stem Cell-based neural tissue engineering and the understand of how cells can be structurally organized into a functional tissue, Comparative analysis of proliferation and differentiation capabilities between hES cell lines, and identifying stomral factors such as dopaminergic Neuron in differentiation of human pluripotent stem cell.  She is a member of International Society for Stem Cell Research and neuroscience. During her free time, she reads, swims and hikes.

Fee (including dinner): $5 Students, $15 Public