Graduate School of health and Medical Sciences

The complexity of age-related diseases
Provider: Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences

Activity no.: 3549-22-00-00
	Enrollment deadline: 01/10/2022

Date and time	07.11.2022, at: 09:00 - 10.11.2022, at: 16:00
Regular seats	16
Course fee	5,280.00 kr.
Lecturers	Rudi Westendorp
ECTS credits	3.00

Contact person	Kathe Jensen E-mail address: kje@sund.ku.dk

Enrolment Handling/Course Organiser	PhD administration E-mail address: phdkursus@sund.ku.dk

Aim and content This course is free of charge for PhD students at Danish universities (except Copenhagen Business School), and for PhD Students from NorDoc member universities. All other participants must pay the course fee. Anyone can apply for the course, but if you are not a PhD student at a Danish university, you will be placed on the waiting list until enrollment deadline. This also applies to PhD students from NorDoc member universities. After the enrollment deadline, available seats will be allocated to applicants on the waiting list. Learning objectives A student who has met the objectives of the course will be able to: 1. Knowledge on aging as a complex phenotype that necessitates research integrating concepts and expertise from various disciplines 2. Knowledge on defining the necessary methods that can be used to conduct aging research 3. Skills to evaluate and discuss the essential concepts of aging from an interdisciplinary perspective 4. Skills to critically assess the strengths and weaknesses of aging research methods presented in the course 5. Competences to transform existing and learnt knowledge into a research idea Content This course is about complex mechanisms. The starting point is the notion that risk factors - whether they are causal or not - do not have a linear relationship but a multivarious relationship with chronic diseases of aging. To have a glimpse of what complexity means, think of linkage analysis when unraveling genetic traits. Essentially there are two obstacles. The first is penetrance; not all who carry the genotype will become diseased. The lesson is that, even for a monogenetic disorder, there are additional factors which explain why disease is present or not. The second obstacle is phenocopies. The inference is that if you have two patients with a similar aging related disease there is likely a different underlying - genetic - mechanism. A classical related biological example is that of Penguins, the true Penguin only living in Antarctica whereas a similar creature at the North Pole is from a completely different lineage called Alks. This so-called coevolution makes sense because life, because of Darwinian selection, adapts successfully but dissimilar to the same adverse environment. The principles of linkage analysis is also being applied in modern epidemiology and especially when it comes to causal inference. The basic idea is that what is generally considered a sufficient cause is likely to be a component course, various component courses making up for a sufficient cause. It implies that there is a zillion percent of causes which necessitates a different type of causal inference within the biological sciences. However, thinking of complexity has more implications. It is the explanation why the dogma of evidence-based medicine fails and the emergence for personalized medicine. Heterogeneity of the complex mechanisms of disease explains why prediction of health status is difficult and Artificial Intelligence have not yet significantly contributed to the field. Participants (Post)doctoral researchers in the health sciences Relevance to graduate programmes The course is relevant to PhD students from the following graduate programmes at the Graduate School of Health and Medical Sciences, UCPH: - All graduate programmes Form The core of the PhD course is built as a series of masterclasses; • ‘The multivarious biology of aging’ • ‘The omics image of biological mechanisms’ • ‘Mechanisms of age-related disease’ • ‘Principals of complex systems regulations’ • ‘Analyzing big biological data’ • ‘Prediction of clinical events’ • ‘Understanding Alzheimer’s disease’ • ‘Studying age related disorders’ Late onset Alzheimer disease will be presented as a case for which we apply the learnings of the module. We will also read and discuss classic papers on the topic in groups, followed by general feedback sessions in the morning. The finishing touch is writing a exam paper on how it all applies to your own work. Course director Rudi Westendorp, Professor Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen westendorp@sund.ku.dk Teachers Rudi Westendorp, Professor of medicine in old age Department of Public Health and Center for Healthy Aging Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen westendorp@sund.ku.dk Samir Bhatt, Professor of machine learning and public health Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen samir.bhatt@sund.ku.dk Lefkos T Middleton, Professor in neurology, neuroepidemiology and ageing School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London l.middleton@imperial.ac.uk Toinét Cronjé, postdoctoral researcher Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen toinet.cronje@sund.ku.dk Pernille Yde, postdoctoral researcher Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen pernille.yde@sund.ku.dk Alexandros Katsiferis, doctoral researcher Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen alexandros.katsiferis@sund.ku.dk Kristine Moseholm, doctoral researcher Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen kristine.moseholm@sund.ku.dk Dates 7-10 November 2022 Course location CSS – Centre for Health and Society The Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK-1353 Copenhagen K, https://socialsciences.ku.dk/campusmap/. Registration Please register before 1 october 2022 Seats to PhD students from other Danish universities will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis and according to the applicable rules. Applications from other participants will be considered after the last day of enrolment. Note: All applicants are asked to submit invoice details in case of no-show, late cancellation or obligation to pay the course fee (typically non-PhD students). If you are a PhD student, your participation in the course must be in agreement with your principal supervisor.

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