An article in in the current issue of Nature by Michelle Lampl, director of Emory’s Center for the Study of Human Health, and colleagues from the University of Southampton summarizes the life’s work of the late David Barker, a visiting professor at Emory, a clinical epidemiologist at the University of Southampton in the UK, and a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University, while also issuing a call to action to improve prenatal care.
Barker, who co-taught undergraduate courses at Emory, including one on predicting life span, and served as an adviser to graduate students, was widely considered to be one of the most important clinical epidemiologists of our time. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage last August at 75, after finishing the first draft of the Nature commentary.
Barker essentially “invented” a new field of medicine, now known as Development Origins of Health and Disease.
“He’s responsible for a paradigm shift in medicine through his focus on the science of health in the womb and the early ages,” says Lampl, an anthropologist who focuses on human growth. “The idea that your first cell has a big influence on your later life sounds unbelievable, and he was criticized horribly when he came up with ‘the Barker hypothesis.’ But he opened the door and profoundly changed the way that we think about health and disease.”
Read article in eScienceCommons blog
See YouTube video of Dr. Barker teaching Emory undergraduates
Barker, who co-taught undergraduate courses at Emory, including one on predicting life span, and served as an adviser to graduate students, was widely considered to be one of the most important clinical epidemiologists of our time. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage last August at 75, after finishing the first draft of the Nature commentary.
Barker essentially “invented” a new field of medicine, now known as Development Origins of Health and Disease.
“He’s responsible for a paradigm shift in medicine through his focus on the science of health in the womb and the early ages,” says Lampl, an anthropologist who focuses on human growth. “The idea that your first cell has a big influence on your later life sounds unbelievable, and he was criticized horribly when he came up with ‘the Barker hypothesis.’ But he opened the door and profoundly changed the way that we think about health and disease.”
Read article in eScienceCommons blog
See YouTube video of Dr. Barker teaching Emory undergraduates
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