TEDMED 2012 Conference Begins Tomorrow; Will Launch Great Challenges Program

WASHINGTON, April 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDMED, www.TEDMED.com, the annual multi-disciplinary gathering where leaders from all sectors of society come together to explore the promise of technology and potential of human achievement in health and medicine, begins tomorrow at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Headline speakers include: Otis Brawley/American Cancer Society; Larry Brilliant/Skoll Global Threats Fund; Dr. Lynda Chin/MD Anderson Cancer Center; Francis Collins/NIH; Katie Couric/Stand Up To Cancer & ABC News; Thomas Frieden/CDC; John Hoffman/HBO Documentary Films; Peggy Hamburg/FDA; Billie Jean King/Health and Social Justice Advocate; Gail McGovern/American Red Cross; Gabby Reece/Women's Health Advocate; and Renowned Biologist E.O. Wilson.

The TEDMED 2012 conference marks the formal launch of the Great Challenges Program, (challenges.tedmed.com), an initiative to gather interdisciplinary perspectives and promote understanding of some of the most persistent and complex issues facing health and medicine. Examples include: The Obesity Crisis; Making Prevention Popular; Addressing Healthcare Costs; Balancing Risk and Rewards; The Impact of Poverty on Health; Food and Technology and many more.

TEDMED has earmarked 50 Challenges for discussion during the conference, and designated a leading expert in the field as an Advocate for each. On-site Delegates and simulcast participants will vote to choose 20 of the Great Challenges for further exploration throughout the coming year via a series of interactive webinars and community discussions.  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is sponsoring the program.

Via TEDMEDLive, another new initiative, TEDMED 2012 will also be simulcast to an estimated 50,000 remote participants from all 50 states, as well as locations in Canada and Mexico.  Among the 300 auditoriums and 1,500 clinics and healthcare locations participants include teaching hospitals, medical schools, research institutions, university life science departments, state and federal government agencies, health-oriented corporations and non-profits.

TEDMED is the world's only TED-licensed event focused solely on innovation and breakthrough thinking across all of health and medicine.  More than 70 preeminent leaders in health, medicine, science, technology, business, government, academia, media and the arts will speak to a sold-out audience of more than 1,500 Delegates. Topics will include neuroscience, microbiology, surgery, oncology, stem cell therapy, bad science, Alzheimer's, robotics, public health, game science, obesity, wearable tech, disease evolution, patient choice, virtual anatomy models, neuroengineering, the nature of imagination, and dozens more. 

Institutions of excellence represented by speakers and attendees will include The American Cancer Society, The American Red Cross, BioDigital Systems, The Boulis Laboratory at Emory ALS Center, Weill Cornell Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, The California Institute of Technology, Center for Complex Network Research, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Duke University, Equal Justice Initiative; Harvard University and Harvard School of Public Health, HBO Documentary Films, Health Leads, mc10, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education, The Michor Laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, The National Institutes of Health, NYU School of Medicine, Penn State University, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Skoll Global Threats Fund, Texas Heart Institute, USC Center for Body Computing, Quest Diagnostics, The Texas Heart Institute, The Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment, SeventyK, Reuters Health, Children's Hospital Boston, The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, VGo and the Young Professionals Chronic Disease Network.

The TEDMED Speaker List:

• Sekou Andrews, spoken word artist, playwright, actor, poet
• Ali Ansary, Co-Founder, SeventyK
• 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
• Larry Brilliant, President and CEO, Skoll Global Threats Fund
• Barbara Bass, Director, Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation, and Education
• Nick Boulis, Founder of the Boulis Laboratory at the Emory ALS Center
• Otis Brawley, Chief Medical Officer of the American Cancer Society
• Virginia Breen, author, with Elizabeth Bonker, poet and aspiring doctor
• Atul Butte, Chief of the Division of Systems Medicine and Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Medicine, and Computer Science, at Stanford University
• Lynda Chin, Chair, Department of Genomic Medicine & Scientific Director, Institute of Applied Cancer Science, MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Jon Cohen, Senior Vice President, Chief Medical Officer and Director of Hospital Services, Quest Diagnostics
• William Cohn, Director, Minimally Invasive Surgical Technology, Texas Heart Institute
• Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health
• Steve Connell, spoken word artist, playwright, actor, poet
• Seth Cooper, Creative Director, Center for Game Science, University of Washington
• Cookie Monster, Sesame Street
• Katie Couric, Stand Up To Cancer; ABC News
• Mary Cummings, Director of the MIT Humans and Automation Laboratory
• Jonathan Eisen, Professor at the DOE Genome Center, University of California, Davis
• Bud Frazier, Chief of Cardiac Support, Texas Heart Institute
• Thomas Frieden, Director, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Ed Gavagan, Co-founder, Design Starts Here
• Jonathan Glass, Director of the Emory ALS Center, Department of Neurology, Emory University
• Ben Goldacre, best-selling author, broadcaster
• Robert Gupta, Artistic Director, Street Symphony
• Peggy Hamburg, Commissioner, U.S. Food and Drug Administration
• Laird Hamilton, Professional Big-Wave Surfer
• John Wesley Harding, Musician & Best Selling Author
• Fred Hersch, jazz pianist/composer
• John Hoffman, Vice President, HBO Documentary Films
• Mark Hyman, author & Chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine
• David Icke, Chief Executive Officer of mc10
• Scott Jurek, Author, Ultramarathon Champion
• Diane Kelly, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst
• Billie Jean King, Champion for Social Equality & Former Tennis Professional
• 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
• MOMIX, Dancers-Illusionists
• Teresa Monachino, author and founder of Studio Monachino
• Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
• 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
• Lisa Nilsson, Visual Artist
• Rebecca Onie, Co-Founder & CEO, Health Leads
• Ivan Oransky, Executive Editor of Reuters Health
• Todd Park, United States Chief Technology Officer
• Dan Perry, President, Alliance for Aging Research
• Gregory Petsko, Professor of Neurology, Weill Cornell Medical School
• Stephen Petronio, Founder, Stephen Petronio Company
• Chris Price, Singer & Songwriter
• Andrew Read, Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State University
• Gabby Reece, Professional Volleyball Player & Women's Health Advocate
• John Qualter, Cofounder, Director of Media, BioDigital Systems, Research Assistant Professor, Educational Informatics, NYU  School of Medicine
• Joel Salatin, Polyface Farms
• Judith Salerno, Leonard D. Schaeffer Executive Officer of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies
• Leslie Saxon, Executive Director & Founder, USC Center for Body Computing
• Jacob Scott, radiation oncologist and cancer theoretician, Moffit Cancer Center
• Howard Shapiro, Global Director of Plant Science and External Research, Mars Incorporated
• Jill Sobule, singer, songwriter
• 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 NYU School of Medicine
• Basil Twist, Artistic Director, Tandem Otter Productions
• 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.

The TEDMED Challenge Advocates:

• Forrest Alton, CEO, The South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy
• Peter Binfield, Publisher, PLoS ONE
• Katherine Browne, Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Center for Health Care Quality in the Department of Health Policy at The George Washington University Medical Center
• John Clymer, Chief Strategy Officer, Alliance to Make US Healthiest; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Loma Linda University School of Public Health; Member, U.S. Community Preventive Services Task Force
• Matthew Cockerill, Managing Director, BioMed Central
• Jeffrey L. Cummings, Director, Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health; Andrea and Joseph Hahn Chair of Neurotherapeutics, Neurological Institute
• Dave deBronkart, "e-Patient Dave"
• Laura Defina, Medical Director of Research, Cooper Institute
• Joel Diringer, Founder, Diringer and Associates
• Cindy Dyer, Vice President, Human Rights, Vital Voices Global Partnership
• Helen Egger, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University
• Christine C. Ferguson, Professor, The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services; Director, STOP Obesity Alliance
• Alan R. Fleischman, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Clinical Professor of Epidemiology and Population Health, Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York
• Anne Gauthier, Senior Program Director, National Academy for State Health Policy
• Thomas J. Graham, Chief, Cleveland Clinic Innovations
• Paula Griswold, Executive Director, Massachusetts Coalition for the Prevention of Medical Errors
• Nortin Hadler, Professor and Attending Rheumatologist, UNC Hospitals
• James Harter, Ph.D. Chief Scientist Workplace Management and Wellbeing, Gallup
• Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director, Food & Water Watch
• Lois Holzman, Director and Co-Founder, The East Side Institute
• Rajiv Kumar, Founder and Chief Medical Officer, ShapeUp
• Steven Krein, Co-Founder, StartUp Health
• Paul Lehrer, Professor of Psychiatry, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; Author
• Susan Lipkins, Psychologist, author and expert in the field of hazing
• David S. Ludwig, Director of the Optimal Weight for Life and New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center at Boston Children's Hospital
• Paul Malley, President, Aging with Dignity
• Kedar Mate, Country Director, IHI South Africa Program; Faculty, Institute for Healthcare Improvement; Assistant Professor, Department of Medicine, Division of Hospital Medicine, Cornell University, NY
• Victoria Maizes, Executive Director of the Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine; Professor of Medicine, Family and Community Medicine, and Public Health at the University of Arizona
• Tracie McMillan, Author of The American Way of Eating
• James Merlino, Chief Experience Officer, Cleveland Clinic Health System
• Suzanne Geffen Mintz, National Family Caregivers Association Co-Founder
• Thomas H. Murray, Ph.D., President and CEO of The Hastings Center
• Armando Nahum, Co-Founder and President, Safe Care Campaign
• Jacqueline Olds, Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Consultant in Psychiatry Massachusetts General Hospital; and Consultant in Psychiatry, McLean
• Helen Osborne, President, Health Literacy Consultings
• Don Rucker, Vice President and Chief Medical Officer, Siemens
• Andrew Rundle, Associate Professor of Epidemiology, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health
• Blair Sadler, Associate Clinical Professor, UCSD Schools of Medicine; Senior Fellow, Institute for Healthcare Improvement
• Ira Sengupta, Executive Director, Cross Cultural Health Care Program
• David L. Shern, President, Mental Health America
• Rebecca Sutphen, President and Chief Medical Officer, InformedDNA: Professor of Genetics, Morsani College of Medicine, University of South Florida
• Russell G. Robertson, Dean and Vice President of Medical Affairs, Rosalind Franklin University Chicago Medical School
• Michael Roizen, Chief Wellness Officer, Cleveland Clinic; J Gorman and Family Chair, Wellness Institute
• William M. Sage, Vice Provost for Health Affairs, James R. Dougherty Chair for Faculty Excellence, University of Texas at Austin
• Leonard S. Sender, Medical Director of the Adolescent and Young Adult Cancer Program in the Hyundai Cancer Institute at CHOC Children's and UC Irvine's Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center
• William H. Shrank, Director, Rapid-Cycle Evaluation Group, and Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, CMS
• Sonia Sarkar, Chief of Staff, Health Leads
• Halle Tecco, Founder, CEO of Rock Health
• David Whitlinger, Executive Director, New York eHealth Collaborative
• Mary Woolley, President and CEO, Research! America

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

TEDMED.com makes all of its stage presentations available as videos at www.TEDMED.com at no cost after the conclusion of the conference. Videos are also posted on TED.com, YouTube and CNN.com for free online viewing.

TEDMED issues monthly email bulletins.  To subscribe, please send an email to: [email protected].

Follow TEDMED at Twitter via @TEDMED.

An RSS feed of TEDMED news and video releases is available via the TEDMED Blog, blog.tedmed.com.

TEDMED, LLC is an independent organization operated under a special license from the nonprofit TED conference.  TEDMED is the only authorized, independent TED conference focusing on the fields of health and medicine.  For more information, please visit www.TEDMED.com.

On-site TEDMED Press Room 202-416-8927  (April 10 – 13, 2012 only) or [email protected]

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