TEDMED 2011 Conference Announces Headline Speakers: Nobel Laureate Dr. Peter Agre, Cancer Care Advocate Lance Armstrong, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin

SAN DIEGO, Oct. 4, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- TEDMED, www.tedmed.com, the annual conference where cutting-edge science and technology leaders "connect, understand and inspire" to advance the art of health and medicine with new ideas, the latest science and innovative technology, today announced its headline speakers.  The conference's roster includes more than 50 preeminent leaders in health, medicine, science, technology, business, government, academia, media and the arts.  They will gather in San Diego at the Hotel del Coronado from October 25 -28 for the 2011 TEDMED conference.

Speakers, attendees and participants will range from Nobel Prize-winning scientists (Dr. Peter Agre) to sports superstars (Lance Armstrong, Diana Nyad), inventors (Dean Kamen), and the U.S. Surgeon General (Dr. Regina Benjamin).  Topics to be explored by TEDMED speakers will range from genomics to telomeres, new drug development, next-generation medical imaging and dozens more as each speaker addresses a specific question about health and medicine.

More than 700 TEDMED attendees including researchers, physicians, technologists and policy experts will foster cross-disciplinary collaboration and learning.  Institutions of excellence represented by speakers and attendees will include Biomedical Engineering Institute of the Imperial College of London, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, Cornell Medical College, DEKA Research and Development, Fungi Perfecti, Insightec, Intellimedicine, Intuitive Surgical, Johns Hopkins, Merck, Mt. Sinai Medical School, Novocure, O'Reilly Media, Organovo, PEPSICO, Pfizer, Physcient, Telome Health, the VisualMD, Walgreen Co., Weight Watchers, University of California San Diego Department of Surgery, University of California San Francisco Medical School, University of Southern California Medical School, University of North California Chapel Hill Department of Chemistry, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Office of Technology and the X-Prize Foundation.

TEDMED will continue to be the health and medicine event of the year where speakers and sponsors will unveil innovations on stage and in the TEDMED Innovation Showcase.  Last year's conference attendees were the first to see Bionic devices that allow paralyzed individuals to walk; a machine that prints 3D tissue on demand; a pill that contains both a camera and tiny surgical tools that can be remote-controlled once inside the patient's body; and GPS-enabled smartphone apps that provide real-time health data to patients.

TEDMED Speaker List (as of 9/30/2011)

Peter Agre, Director, Malaria Research Institute; Bloomberg School Public Health; David Agus, Professor of Medicine, University of Southern California; Sekou Andrews, Artist, Playwright, Actor and Musician; Lance Armstrong, Chairman, Lance Armstrong Foundation; Nathan Ball, Artist; Ger Brophy, VP of Strategic Planning & Licensing, Medical Diagnostics, GE; Eythor Bender, CEO, Berkeley Bionics; Regina Benjamin, U.S. Surgeon General; Dan Buettner, Author; Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer; Steve Connell, Artist, Playwright, Actor and Musician; Joseph DeSimone, Chancellor's Eminent Professor of Chemistry, University of North Carolina; Andrew Dawson, Performance Artist & Feldenkrais practitioner; Peter Diamandis, Chairman, X PRIZE Foundation; Ashley Dombkowski, Chief Business Officer, 23andMe; Bill Doyle, Chairman, NovoCure; Elissa Epel, Associate Professor, Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco; Juan Enriquez, Managing Director, Excel Venture Management; Gabor Forgacs, Chief Science Officer Organovo, professor of biophysics. University of Missouri; Michael Graves, Architect; Robert Hariri, CEO, Celgene Cellular Therapeutics; Calvin Harley, Co-Founder, CSO and President of Telome Health; A.J. Jacobs, Author; Barton Kamen, Clinical Research Professor, Metronomx; Dean Kamen, President, Deka Research & Development; Mehmood Khan, CSO, PEPSICO, CEO Global Nutrition Group; David Kirchhoff, President, Weight Watchers; Daniel Kraft, Physician, Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology; Freda Lewis-Hall, CMO, Pfizer Medical; Charles Limb, Assoc. Professor, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Jonathan Mann, Singer, Comedian;  Eric Mead, Magician, Author; Yoav Medan, VP/ Chief Systems Architect, InSightec; Catherine Mohr, Director of Medical Research, Intuitive Surgical; Farzad Mostashari, National Coordinator for Health IT, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; Quyen Nguyen, Director, Facial Nerve Clinic, University of California San Diego; Sheila Nirenberg, Weill Medical College of Cornell University; Diana Nyad, Author, Ultra-Marathon Swimmer; Tim O'Reilly, Founder & CEO, O'Reilly Media; Todd Park, CTO, U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services; Cheryl Pegus, CMO, Walgreen Co.; Charles Pell, Co-Founder Physcient; Michael Rosenblatt, CMO, Merck; Eric Schadt, Director, Institute of Genomics and Multiscale Biology; Jill Sobule, Singer & Songwriter; Rick Smolan, Co-Founder, Against All Odds; Paul Stamets, Founder, Fungi Perfecti Laboratories; Lee Stein, Prize Capital & Virtual Group; Chris Toumazou, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Imperial College of London; Alexander Tsiaras, Founder & CEO The Visual MD; Loudon Wainwright III, Singer-Songwriter, Actor; John Wynn, Swedish Cancer Institute of Seattle.  Additional speakers will be announced prior to conference start date.

TEDMED Sponsors

The TEDMED conference and mission are generously supported by more than a dozen major U.S. sponsors including some of the world's best-known companies.  TEDMED sponsors include important thought leaders in the realm of health and medicine: The California Endowment, GE, IOMEDIA, Jawbone, Johnson & Johnson, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Mars Inc., Nurture, Panasonic, PEPSICO, Qualcomm and Walgreens.

TEDMED Contributors

Abbott, Fulbright & Jawarski, LLP, Alexander Isley Inc., John Halloran Associates, Pfizer, Rogers & Cowan, Scanadu, Seagull, SpotMe, Stairway 9, Sub Rosa, Urban Zen, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, VEEV, XVIVO and Yamaha.

TEDMED Talks and Updates

True to the TED tradition, 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].

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 heath and medicine.  For more information, please visit www.tedmed.com.

SOURCE TEDMED