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GFN23 Announced

The GFN conference team has announced plans for #GFN23, taking place in Warsaw from Wednesday 21 to Saturday 24 June

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The Global Forum for Nicotine conference team has announced plans for #GFN23, taking place in Warsaw from Wednesday 21 to Saturday 24 June. As well as revealing the keynote speakers and who will be delivering the Michael Russell Oration, the team has also confirmed that the GFN Fives will again play a key role – something vapers themselves can contribute to.

Sarah Cooney will be the first keynote speaker of #GFN23. Sarah holds a BSc in genetics and an MSc in plant genetics and worked in various editorial and publishing roles at leading peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Elsevier and BioMedCentral. She also founded British American Tobacco’s science engagement and communication program to share the science behind reduced-risk nicotine products.

Sarah’s presentation will focus on “The politics of scientific publishing”, building on her extensive experience running her own agency as a science engagement specialist focusing on tobacco harm reduction and science communication.

Dr Paul Newhouse is the second keynote speaker. Paul works at the at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville where he holds the Jim Turner Chair in Cognitive Disorders. The Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology, and Medicine has published many papers on brain cholinergic mechanisms in cognitive ageing and the role of nicotinic cholinergic receptor systems in normal and impaired cognitive functioning in humans.

Dr Newhouse’s presentation looks at “The role of nicotinic systems in brain disorders”, leaning on his experience looking at the importance of brain nicotinic cholinergic receptor systems in normal cognitive processes and established these receptors as a therapeutic target in Alzheimer’s disease and related conditions.

The organisers say: “The Michael Russell Oration has been established as an annual event, delivered to honour the work and memory of Professor Michael Russell, one of the pioneers in the study of smoking behaviour, clinical interventions and public policy action, who died in 2009.

“Based on the knowledge that pure nicotine carries little health risk, but is the main reason why people smoke, he advocated the development and promotion of safer nicotine products to the exclusion of cigarettes, to reduce the majority of harm caused by ingesting the non-nicotine toxins in burning tobacco.”

This year, the GFN23 Michael Russell Oration will be delivered by Dr Roberto Sussman, a full-time senior researcher and lecturer at the Institute for Nuclear Sciences of the National University of Mexico.

Dr Sussman’s main research areas are General Relativity and Cosmology, but he has conducted research in other areas of Physics, including peer reviewed publications on e-cigarette aerosols.

He is the Founder and Director of Pro-Vapeo Mexico, an association representing Mexican consumers of non-combustible nicotine products, and actively advocates for the appropriate regulation of reduced harm products in Mexico.

Vapers can contribute directly through #GFNFives by submitting a 5 minute video, animation or voiceover on any of the following topics: Science and Innovation; Policy, Legislative and Regulatory Issues; and Consumer Advocacy, Regional Updates and General Information. Contributions need to be made before 2 MAY 2023.

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Dave Cross avatar

Dave Cross

Journalist at POTV
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Dave is a freelance writer; with articles on music, motorbikes, football, pop-science, vaping and tobacco harm reduction in Sounds, Melody Maker, UBG, AWoL, Bike, When Saturday Comes, Vape News Magazine, and syndicated across the Johnston Press group. He was published in an anthology of “Greatest Football Writing”, but still believes this was a mistake. Dave contributes sketches to comedy shows and used to co-host a radio sketch show. He’s worked with numerous vape companies to develop content for their websites.

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