Nora Volkow: Working to Eliminate Addiction

M.D., Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health

Addiction affects 23.2 million Americans. The head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse believes that all addictions can be eliminated if the brain’s receptors can be controlled. She will explain her groundbreaking work and the amazing personal story that has allowed her, as the great-granddaughter of famed Russian dissident Leon Trotsky, to achieve her current prominence.

Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, MEMBERS FREE, $7students (with valid ID)

Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity and Disease

Robert H. Lustig, M.D.; Professor of Pediatrics, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital; Author, Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease; Former Chairman, Ad hoc Obesity Task Force of the Pediatric Endocrine Society

Lustig says two dogmas stand between us and solving the obesity epidemic: “A calorie is a calorie,” and “You are what you eat.” If you believe these, then behaviors come first, behaviors infer personal responsibility and personal responsibility implies a conscious decision. But does this really make sense in obesity? Lustig finds many reasons to doubt these dogmas, starting with the idea that obesity is not a choice, diet and exercise don’t work, and the obesity epidemic is now a pandemic. Lustig will explore each of these points in order to debunk our most viscerally held beliefs, so that people can embrace the science of obesity, which will extricate us from this current social and medical catastrophe.

MLF: Health & Medicine
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, $8 members, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: Patty James

Jack Gallant: Reverse-Engineering the Human Brain

Jack Gallant, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley

The human brain is the most sophisticated computer system known to man, capable of impressive feats under challenging natural conditions. Reverse-engineering the brain might enable us to design artificial systems with the same capabilities. Gallant’s laboratory uses a data-driven approach to tackle this reverse-engineering problem. He will discuss how this framework could form the basis of practical new brain-reading technologies and inform development of biologically inspired computer vision systems.

MLF: Health & Medicine/Science & Technology
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students
Program Organizer: Daniel Trachewsky

How to Keep All the Important Balls in the Air

Linda Hawes Clever, M.D., Clinical Professor of Medicine, UCSF; Associate Dean of Alumni Affairs, Stanford University School of Medicine; Member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences; Author, The Fatigue Prescription: Four Steps to Renewing Your Energy, Health and Life

Juggling can be exhilarating and exhausting – and dangerous. Many of us have become adept at keeping several balls in the air at once. What can you do, however, to adjust when new balls get tossed into the picture, or when life throws you a curve or when you just want to rest a bit? How can you set priorities, assemble help and helpers, or, frankly, let go? This program's give-and-take could add spice, skills and wisdom to your lives. We will explore practical and powerful ways to refresh, build effectiveness and enthusiasm, and work toward finding or re-finding your sense of purpose. We’ll discuss values, how best to say “No” and “Yes” at the right times in your career and life, and the pluses and minuses of being “driven.”

MLF: Health & Medicine
Location:  SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing
Cost: $20 standard, $8 members, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: William Grant

How Frugal Innovation Is Reviving the U.S. Economy

Beth Comstock, Chief Marketing Officer, General Electric
Sonal Shah, Founding Director, White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation
Halle Tecco, Co-founder and CEO, Rock Health
Jennifer Tescher, President and CEO, Center for Financial Services Innovation
Navi Radjou, Author, Jugaad Innovation: Think Frugal, Be Flexible, Generate Breakthrough Growth - Moderator

Learn about a groundbreaking new paradigm – frugal innovation – being pioneered by visionary entrepreneurs, corporations and government agencies to innovate cost-effectively and sustainably under severe resource constraints. Using frugal innovation methods, these American pioneers are creating affordable solutions that deliver more value at less cost to consumers and citizens in sectors like health care, education and financial services.

MLF: Business & Leadership
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 11:30 a.m. check-in, noon program, 1 p.m. book signing
Cost: $20 standard, MEMBERS FREE, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: Kevin O'Malley

Beyond THC: Cannabidiol and the Future of Medical Marijuana

Martin A. Lee, Author, Smoke Signals

Cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive component of marijuana, has extraordinary therapeutic qualities, claims Lee. Discover the various molecular mechanisms through with CBD exerts its effects as an anticonvulsant, antipsychotic and neuro-protective compound. This lecture will also address recent efforts to reintroduce CBD-rich remedies and how the medical marijuana industry has responded to the rediscovery of CBD, which doesn’t make people feel high and can actually counter the psychoactive effects of THC.

MLF: Health & Medicine
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 book signing
Cost: $20 standard, $12 members, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: Bill Grant

Can We Prevent Chronic Disease by Slowing Aging?

Gordon J. Lithgow, Ph.D.; Professor, Interdisciplinary Research Center, Geroscience, Buck Institute

Aging is the single largest risk factor for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. Such chronic diseases account for 75 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States. The physical, emotional and financial burden carried by those who suffer from age-related conditions and disease – as well as by their family members and caregivers – is one of the most significant challenges to our health-care system and welfare as a society. Emerging science suggests that chronic disease could be prevented by simply understanding aging. Lithgow will discuss the basic science behind the next biomedical revolution and look at what’s to come.

MLF: Grownups
Location:  SF Club Office
Time: 4:45 p.m. networking reception, 5:15 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, MEMBERS FREE
Program Organizer: John W. Milford

Island Practice

Pam Belluck, Staff Writer, The New York Times; Author, Island Practice

Belluck presents a spirited true story of a colorful, contrarian doctor on the world-famous yet idiosyncratic island of Nantucket. Dr. Timothy Lepore is surgeon, coroner, football team doctor, tick expert, unofficial psychologist, accidental homicide detective and occasional veterinarian. He has treated Jimmy Buffett, Chris Matthews, and Kennedy relatives, but makes house calls to a hermit in the forest and lets people pay in oatmeal raisin cookies. He carves scalpels from obsidian and tackles everything from "toe-tourniquet syndrome" to horses with Lyme disease. He espouses conservative views while performing abortions and giving patients marijuana cookies. Come learn about what his story has to teach us about today's health-care landscape, about the medical care we want, and about preserving individuality in a cookie-cutter world. Island Practice is being developed into a television series for CBS.

MLF: Health & Medicine
Location:  SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program, 7 p.m. book signing
Cost: $20 standard, $8 members, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: William Grant

Metabolic Wellness: Cracking Your Metabolic Code and Personalizing Your Health Choices to Create a Health-Style

James LaValle, R.Ph.; C.C.N.; N.M.D.; Cofounder, Living Longer Institute; Adjunct Associate Professor, University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy; Author, Cracking the Metabolic Code

Learn how you can assess the factors affecting your metabolism and what steps you can take to customize restoring your optimal metabolism. Each person’s metabolism is unique and influenced by lifestyle, diet, stress metabolism, genes, environmental influences and relationships.

MLF: Health & Medicine
Location: SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, $8 members
Program Organizers: Susan Downs and Bill Grant

Michael B. Eisen: Reinventing Scientific Communication

Michael B. Eisen, Ph.D; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Associate Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley; Co-founder, Public Library of Science

The scientific literature is one of humanity’s greatest creations – a complete record of the ideas, experiments and discoveries of generations of researchers across the globe. While most of this corpus is now online, it remains as inaccessible to the public as it was centuries ago – with the physical limitations of print journals replaced by expensive publisher pay walls. Eisen, a leader in the movement to reinvent scientific communication, will discuss the origins of this absurd system, why it still exists, how the “open access” movement he helped to launch is finally bringing it to an end.     

MLF: Health & Medicine/Science & Technology
Location:  SF Club Office
Time: 5:30 p.m. networking reception, 6 p.m. program
Cost: $20 standard, $8 members, $7 students (with valid ID)
Program Organizer: Chisako Ress and Kishore Hari