Sports Icon and Humanitarian Billie Jean King to Speak at TEDMED 2012 Conference

WASHINGTON, March 22, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --TEDMED, www.TEDMED.com, the annual gathering of science, medical and technology leaders, today announced that Billie Jean King, sports icon and health and social justice advocate, will speak at its conference in Washington, D.C. on April 10-13.

Named one of the "100 Most Important Americans of the 20th Century" by Life Magazine in 1990, King received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, in 2009. In 2010, she was appointed to the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.  She is active in promoting many of the organization's programs, including an association with First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move" initiative.

King also helps to provide programming and funding for those infected, affected or at risk of HIV/AIDS through her work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation (EJAF). A member of the organization's Board of Trustees, she has helped the organization raise more than $225 million for programs in 55 countries around the world.

King won her first of a record 20 Wimbledon titles when she captured the 1961 Wimbledon Ladies' Doubles Championship with Karen Hantze in 1961. She went on to win 39 Grand Slam singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles during her career.  On September 20, 1973, King empowered women and educated men when she defeated Bobby Riggs in one of the greatest moments in sports history – the Battle of the Sexes.

Since founding the Women's Sports Foundation in 1974, King has led the organization in its mission to advance the lives of girls and women through sports and physical activity.  Since its founding The Foundation has awarded more than $125 million in educational and cash grants to advance participation, research and leadership in sports and physical activity for girls and women.

TEDMED is the world's only TED-licensed event focused solely on innovation and breakthrough thinking across all of health and medicine. It will be held at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., April 10 - 13.   It will also be simulcast to teaching hospitals, medical schools, research institutions, university life science departments, state and federal government agencies, health-oriented corporations and non-profits across the nation to more than 50,000 forecasted participants.

Speakers, attendee-Delegates and participants will range from biologists (Dr. E.O. Wilson), writers (Mark Hyman) and executives (Jon Cohen, Quest Diagnostics) to physicists (Albert-Laszlo Barabasi), entrepreneurs (Todd Park) and public health leaders like the director of the National Institutes of Health (Dr. Francis Collins).  Topics to be explored by TEDMED speakers will include neuroscience, microbiology, surgery, oncology, stem cell therapy, bad science, Alzheimer's, robotics, game science, wearable tech, disease evolution, patient choice, virtual anatomy models, the nature of imagination, and dozens more.

More than 1,200 TEDMED onsite attendees including researchers, physicians, technologists and policy experts will foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and learning at the Kennedy Center this April. Institutions of excellence represented by speakers and attendees will include The American Cancer Society, The American Red Cross, Biodigital Systems, The Boulis Laboratory, Brandeis University, Brigham and Women's Hospital, The California Institute of Technology, Center for Complex Network Research, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Duke University, Emory University, Harvard University, Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, mc10, Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education, MIT Humans and Automation Laboratory, The National Institutes of Health, New York University, Penn State University, Quest Diagnostics, The Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, Reuters Health, Children's Hospital Boston, The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network.

TEDMED Speaker List (as of 3/20/2012)

• Sekou Andrews, spoken word artist, playwright, actor, poet
• Frances Arnold, Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, California Institute of Technology
• Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, Director of the Center for Complex Network Research, Northeastern University
• Barbara Bass, Director, Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education
• Nick Boulis, Founder of the Boulis Laboratory
• Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society
• Virginia Breen, author, poet and aspiring doctor with Elizabeth Bonker, poet
• Atul Butte, Chief of the Division of Systems Medicine and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Computer Science, at Stanford University
• Jon Cohen, Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Director of Hospital Services, Quest Diagnostics
• Steve Connell, spoken word artist, playwright, actor, poet
• Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health
• Cookie Monster, "om nom nom nom"
• Seth Cooper, Creative Director, Center for Game Science, University of Washington
• Mary Cummings, Director of the MIT Humans and Automation Laboratory
• Jonathan Eisen, Full Professor at the University of California, Davis
• Thomas Frieden, Director, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Ed Gavagan, Owner, PraxisNYC
• Jonathan Glass, Director of the Emory ALS Center, Department of Neurology, Emory University
• Ben Goldacre, best-selling author, broadcaster
• Robert Gupta, professional violinist
• John Hoffman, Vice President, HBO Documentary Films
• Mark Hyman, author & Chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine
• David Icke, Chief Executive Officer of mc10
• Diane Kelly, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Sandeep Kishore, M.D. Ph.D., Harvard Medical School fellow, Co-chair, Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network
• Jonathan Mann, singer, songwriter
• Gail McGovern, President and Chief Executive Officer of the American Red Cross
• Franziska Michor, Associate Professor of Computational Biology, Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
• Teresa Monachino, author and founder of Studio Monachino
• Lisa Nilssen, visual artist
• Hiep Nguyen, Director, the Robotic Surgery, Research, and Training Center and the Pediatric TeleUrology Service at Children's Hospital Boston
• Miguel Nicolelis, founder of Duke's Center for Neuroengineering
• MOMIX, dancers/illusionists
• Ivan Oransky, Executive Editor of Reuters Health
• Todd Park, Chief Technology Officer, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
• Gregory Petsko, Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Brandeis University
• Andrew Read, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State University
• John Qualter, Cofounder, Director of Media, BioDigital Systems
• Joel Salatin, beyond organic farmer and author
• Judith Salerno, Leonard D. Schaeffer Executive Officer of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
• Jacob Scott, radiation oncologist and cancer theoretician
• Jill Sobule, singer, songwriter
• Bryan Stevenson, public interest lawyer
• Reisa Sperling, Director, the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, Brigham and Women's Hospital
• Step Afrika!, percussive dance group
• Traces, urban acrobats
• Marc Triola, Associate Dean for Educational Informatics at New York University School of Medicine
• VGO Robotic Telepresence System
• Washington Performing Arts Society's Children of the Gospel Choir
• E.O. Wilson, Honorary Curator in Entomology and University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University.

Additional speakers will be announced prior to the conference start date.

TEDMED Sponsors
The TEDMED conference and mission are generously supported by major U.S. sponsors, including some of the world's best-known companies and thought leaders in the realm of health and medicine: Booz/Allen/Hamilton, The California Endowment, The Cleveland Clinic, GE, Johnson & Johnson, Philips, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mars Inc., Siemens and Xerox.

TEDMED Contributing Sponsors
IOMEDIA, Panasonic, Steelcase and Nurture.   

TEDMEDLive Simulcast Sponsors
TEDMEDLive is sponsored by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Siemens, and The California Endowment.

For more information: http://www.tedmed.com/conference/live

TEDMED Patron Fund Contributors
Humana, The California Endowment. For more information: http://www.tedmed.com/conference/patron

TEDMED Talks and Updates
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