Workshop

See also:
-- Official Announcement of Longevity Workshop
-- Official Brochure about Longevity Workshop


Ongoing Plans for a Scientific Workshop on Human Longevity in Malaysia, November, 2007

Greetings,

This is a place for discussing organizational efforts for a Scientific Workshop on Human Longevity in Malaysia, November 26-27, 2007.

The main idea of this workshop is to encourage more scientists to do research on human longevity, and to foster international collaboration between them. This scientific event is envisioned as a 2-day workshop (on 26 & 27 November, 2007) with about 30-50 participants.

The workshop is anticipated to be a teaching/discussion/hands-on session. The participants come to learn and discuss their ideas with fellow-colleagues. They will be provided with an option to present their papers and discuss their work, for those who wish to do this. Generally speaking, the abstracts and papers are not mandatory for participation in this workshop -- this is an option, an additional opportunity granted to workshop participants. There will be two workshop facilitators who will help to guide and lead discussions. They will throw ideas to be discussed in group. The participants can then be invited to present and share what they have discussed with others. The organizers hope at the end of the workshop there will be some good ideas for joint research proposals.

Roughly, the workshop is anticipated to have 3 sessions daily:

9.00-10.30 - discussion
10.30-11.00 - tea
11.00-12.30 - discussion
12.30-2.00 - lunch/rest
2.00-4.30 - general informal discussion
4.30-5.00 - tea.

To make the afternoon session (2.00-4.30) more lively, the organizers anticipate to have a particularly informal group discussion/presentation.

Here is the Draft of the Human Longevity workshop schedule for 26 & 27 November, 2007

Day 1, 26 November, 2007:

Session 1.
Introductory notes. Short history of the subject. Present state of aging and longevity studies.
Mortality laws. Gompertz-Makeham law of mortality. Compensation law of mortality. Late-life mortality deceleration and plateau. Mathematical functions (laws) describing life span distribution. What are the limits to human longevity?

Session 2
Biological theories of aging and longevity. Review of existing evolutionary theories of aging. Reliability theory and aging studies. Mathematical models of aging.

Session 3 - General Discussion
Experimental studies on aging and longevity. Genes that increase longevity in biological studies. Experimental life extension: caloric restriction, hypothermia, antioxidants. Sex differences in mortality and lifespan: why do women live longer? Do females always live longer?


Day 2, 27 November, 2007 :

Session 4
Epidemiological approach to human aging and longevity. Data resources to study human longevity and its predictors. Brief review of major factors that influence human longevity (behavioral, socio-economic, environmental, nutritional, physiological, etc.). Early-life events and conditions as predictors of human health and mortality in later life. Parental age at reproduction and human longevity. Season-of-birth effects.

Session 5
Genetics of human longevity. Familial longevity and lifespan heritability. Centenarians as a model for aging and longevity studies. Testing evolutionary theories of aging and longevity using human data. Grandmother hypothesis. Links between longevity and fertility. Is there a reproductive cost for human longevity? Longevity and children's sex ratio.

Session 6 - General Discussion
Prospects for human life span extension. Regularities of human mortality. Biological and social characteristics of human life span.
Historical changes of life span in developed countries. Population aging and its causes. Different approaches to forecasting life expectancy and population aging. Prospects for international scientific cooperation in human longevity studies.

Recommended Reading for this Human Longevity Workshop:
1. The Biology of Life Span: A Quantitative Approach
2. Handbook of the Biology of Aging, Sixth Edition
3. Handbook of Models for Human Aging
4. Grandmotherhood: The Evolutionary Significance of the Second Half of Female Life
5. Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence: Why Genuine Control of Aging May Be Foreseeable
6. Modulating Aging and Longevity (Biology of Aging and its Modulation)
7. Encyclopedia of Population
8. Encyclopedia of Aging (4 Volume Set)
9. Sex and Longevity: Sexuality, Gender, Reproduction, Parenthood (Research and Perspectives in Longevity)

Please note that just after this human longevity workshop, there will be another interesting meeting at the same location:

International Conference on Mathematical Sciences
"Integrating Mathematical Sciences within Society"
28-29 November 2007, Equatorial Hotel, Bangi-Putrajaya, Malaysia

This conference will also cover the quantitative and mathematical approaches to aging and longevity studies.
Therefore, consider participating in both events at the same place for the period of November 26-29, 2007 !
And then you can take a free tour to Kuala Lumpur on 30th Nov 2007!

If you are interested to be a participant, or a sponsor for this event, please post your comment below.

Malaysia is an interesting country to see!:

http://tourism.gov.my/


Thank you and looking forward to hear from you!