Global Inequalities implications for research, practice and policy

Michael Marmot was born in London, England. He moved to Australia as a young child and graduated in Medicine from the University of Sydney, Australia, in 1968. He earned a MPH in 1972 and PhD in 1975 from the University of California, Berkeley. He became Fellow of the (English) Faculty of Public Health Medicine in 1989 and was appointed Professor of Epidemiology and Public Health at UCL in 1985. This became a joint Chair, held at UCL and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in 1990. He became Director of the International Centre for Health and Society (now the International Institute for Society and Health) that he established at UCL in 1994. He was a member of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution and awarded an MRC Professorship in 1995. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1996. In 2004 he was awarded the Balzan Prize for Epidemiology. He was Chair of the WHO Commission on Social Determinants of Health from 2005 to 2008.

Skin Cancer Prevention and Early Detection

Skin cancers -- including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma -- are on the rise, but using sunscreen liberally and limiting exposure to the sun can help prevent them, says Isaac Brownell of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Regular self-examination of your skin, including a yearly dermatology checkup, is the best way to identify skin lesions that may be cancerous. Diagnostic tools such as dermoscopy and confocal microscopy provide detailed images of skin lesions, which may help detect skin cancers and avoid unnecessary biopsies of non-cancerous lesions.

Molecular Assays for Colorectal Cancer Care

Molecular assays for risk stratification for cancer and for the early detection of cancer are currently being developed and are beginning to be used in clinical care. Likewise, molecular assays are being developed as predictive and prognostic markers for cancer. The state-of-the art of currently available risk stratification assays and molecular screening assays for colorectal cancer will be discussed. Current developments in the generation of predictive and prognostic markers for colorectal cancer will also be discussed. Finally, future directions for molecular assays for colorectal cancer will be reviewed.

Functionalizing the Cancer Genome

Using Dendritic Cells to Create Cancer Vaccines

Edgar Engleman, MD, medical director of the Stanford Blood Center, discusses his research involving the use of a special type of white blood cell as a treatment for cancer. Engleman, who is also a professor of pathology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and his team of researchers have been interested in dendritic cells, or DCs, which can provoke an immune response in the body