Around 2% of adults (and 8% of children) suffer from food allergies across the globe. For some, the intake of even small amounts of an allergen can cause serious health problems - some of which can be life-threatening. To date there is no effective treatment available. Science provides the basis for food safety, while legislation ensures that appropriate controls are made to protect consumers. Incidences of food allergies appear to be increasing, and some argue that consumer fear and avoidance of certain foodstuffs may actually feedback and contribute to this increase. The scope of this symposium will range from suitable analytical methodology for the detection of allergen traces to policy requirements, health issues and communication.

Cardiovascular disease, obesity and diabetes are – in part – lifestyle dependent diseases, and constitute a main healthcare burden. Low aerobic capacity is one of the strongest risk factors for development of cardiovascular disease and premature death in mammals. Exercise, the sole strategy for increasing aerobic capacity in humans, affects many organs and tissues in a beneficial way. The adaptations are mediated through various changes in tissue environment which influence protein modifications and gene expression. Regular physical activity in humans affects the activity (mRNA copy number) of around 1000 genes and several RNA interference mechanisms which through complex networks regulate adaptation.

Still, training is ineffective in a significant number of people. The molecular governors of a low or high propensity for aerobic capacity adaptation are unknown, and population genetics alone has not easily resolved the genetic variants that quantitatively contribute to cardiorespiratory adaptation. In this session, genetic, epigenetic and genomic findings that can explain parts of the inter-individual variation will be discussed. These approaches to identify high- and low-responders will be discussed in the larger context of “personalised medicine”. Finally, the possibility that variations in responsiveness to life style interventions play a role for health outcomes and the risk for premature death will be discussed from health care system and ethical perspectives.

The reproductive basis of highly differentiated societies is increasingly dependent on knowledge and expertise as well as on equally specialized roles and institutions. In these societies the problem of the political decision is particularly delicate, because those who decide have almost always a deficit of knowledge and expertise related to the complexity of the relevant field of action. Hence the need to use ad hoc experts. This problem pervades many areas of policy choice, such as major infrastructures for mobility, technologies for energy production, environmental risks like climate change, genetic engineering, measures for environmental transition. Basically, we wonder if scientific expertise might be used in decision-making processes in a neutral and impartial way, and if the dichotomy between "democracy" and "expertocracy" can be resolved.

Experts have long been trapped in a perpetual dialogue within their community, but recently the role of pressure groups and bottom-up actors has increased. This workshop will analyze issues such as: expertise and society; expertise and definition of risk; expertise and decision making; expertise and environmental transition; models of expertise; mass-media, language, and rhetorical expertise; genealogies of expertise; expertise, trust and credibility.

Recent opinion polls regarding nanotechnology applications identify one particular sensitive area: the use of nanotechnology in food and feed. Consumer groups who demonstrate, in general, a positive attitude towards nanotechnology including applications in many consumer products are very negative towards nanotechnology in food.

The advent of nanotechnologies has brought enormous new prospects to a wide range of industrial sectors. At the same time, these pioneering processes, materials, and applications have raised fresh concerns over their safety to human health and the environment. Particularly sensitive areas of application include medicine, personal care products, agriculture and food, as well as those applications that involve the deliberate large-scale release of nanoparticles into the environment, such as water treatment and remediation of polluted soils.

This session will focus on state-of-the-knowledge studies of nanotechnology applications for the food sector, identify current knowledge gaps, and suggest possible ways forward. We will discuss the potential benefits and risks of the new technology and consider strategies on how to communicate them to the public without jeopardizing the wider benefits of the new technology to society. The session also addresses the apparent global absence of a nano-specific regulation.

Misunderstanding and widespread feelings of fear and danger still surround the issue of DNA patenting. The 1998 European Directive on protection of biotechnological inventions requires EU member states to recognise isolated genes and nucleotide sequences as patentable inventions. Recent rulings of the Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office have illustrated that patents can also be granted for methods of genetic testing without claiming genes themselves. These rulings upheld patents granted for BRCA1-related cancer tests, in the face of considerable opposition from European scientists, who consider DNA patents as a barrier to the progress of genomic research. However, there is not much empirical evidence on how patenting is affecting clinical genetic testing.

Two independent in-depth studies mapping the complex landscape of diagnostic DNA patents in the US and Europe have recently been conducted. These will be presented with a view to discussing the barriers, the opportunities, the actual and potential threats of DNA patenting trying to address some of the following key questions raised by the scientific world and by society: Is patenting affecting accessibility to genetic testing? Are prices higher because of the requirement of licenses? Is there a visible impact on test development as a result of patenting? Is DNA patenting a fair and reasonable way to encourage and protect innovation, or is it a threat to patient rights?

How alike or unlike each other are European countries in terms of their “scientific culture”? Can we describe and measure scientific culture by means of opinion and attitude surveys? How do the ideologies and belief systems, including the prevailing religious beliefs, influence the scientific culture of individual countries? These and other questions will be explored in this session which will examine similarities and differences in the scientific culture of selected European countries, principally Italy, Finland and Ireland, and of the European Union as a whole, as evidenced principally in Eurobarometer surveys. Drawing also on national surveys on public attitudes to science and technology and analyses of media coverage of science and technology, the panel will aim to characterise the scientific culture of these countries.

The panel will consider historical trends and regional patterns in responses to surveys over three decades on science and technology generally and on particular issues. The panelists are social scientists and communication specialists with a particular interest in perceptions and representations of science and technology, and experience in working directly with natural scientists on science-in-society and communication projects. Those attending the session, of whatever disciplinary background, will be invited to join the discussion on the shaping of a country’s scientific culture, which will also be framed in terms of national and supra-national policy.

Most people have the feeling of having conscious experiences (Descartes’ res cogitans) and in parallel of being well immersed in a physical world (Descartes’ res extensa). The ancient problem of how the mind emerges in living organisms has divided generations of philosophers and scientists alike. Neuroscience is beginning to throw some light on this problem by recognising that consciousness emerges in parallel with the brain as it develops in an intimate relationship with the body and via it with the external world. This interaction occurs both ways with exposure to the world shaping the brain/mind and with the brain and mind acting in the world. This mutual interaction can be regarded as a loop. Traditionally each arm of this loop has been considered in isolation. The emergence of the “self” depends so much on the ongoing experience of the world. The influence of our brain on our behaviour is a well accepted concept. However, how the neural circuits of the brain with their specific chemical neurotransmitters control behaviour is only at its infancy.

In this session we will clarify how this occurs in determining impulsive and affective behaviour; discuss the influence of the mind over the body focusing on the so called “placebo” effect; underline the remarkable ability of humans to readily accept what other humans do thanks to “mirror neurons”, the discovery of which has opened an entire new field of research on the bases of the “social brain” and its relation with the body. Finally we will discuss with the audience the implications for society of the dynamics of the full experiential loops from body to mind and from mind to body.