The Annual Senior Lecture Series of the Academy of Scholars will be Thursday, Oct. 25, at 3 p.m., in Blue Auditorium, Scott Hall. David J.P. Barker, M.D., Ph.D., professor of clinical epidemiology at United Kingdom's University of Southampton and a professor of medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University, will speak on "Chronic Disease Begins in the Womb."

Fifteen years ago, Dr. Barker showed for the first time that people who had low birth weight are at greater risk of developing coronary heart disease. He subsequently showed that they are also at greater risk of stroke, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes. This led to the idea that these disorders originate through malnutrition in the womb and during infancy. In 1992, the British Medical Journal named this the "Barker Hypothesis," which is now widely accepted. He recently joined the faculty at the Heart Research Center, OHSU, to study how nutrition and growth before birth and during early childhood alter the development of the heart.

For more information, please call (313) 577-6011. This event is co-sponsored by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Perinatology Research Branch.