Speakers:

Marcelo Firpo Porto is a Senior researcher at the National School of Public Health Centre for Studies of Workers’ Health and Human Ecology of the National School of Public Health, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. His work concerns with Collective Health, with focus on Environmental and Workers’Health, currently working on Integrated Approaches on Risk Management and Health Promotion; Environmental (In)Justice and political ecology; social vulnerability; complexity, risks and uncertainty; the precautionary principle. He teaches in the graduate programme in Public Health and Environment at ENSP/FIOCRUZ.
Publications:
“Vulnerability and Industrial Hazards in Industrializing Countries: An Integrative Approach”. Futures. London: , v.35 (7): 317-336, (2003). With C. M. Freitas.
“Globalization and work in Brazil”. Z. - Zeitschrift für marxistische Erneuerung, Frankfurt am Main, v.13, n. 52, December (2002).
 “Chemical Safety and Governance in Brazil”. Journal Of Hazardous Materials. London, v.86, n.1-3, p.135 - 151, (2001), with C. M. Freitas et al.

Jean Paul Gaudillière is a sociologist and historian of science. He is a senior researcher at INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale), and lectures in History and Philosophy of Science at Ecole Polytechnique, Paris. Some of his work focus on diethylstilbestrol (DES), a controversial synthetic estrogen, and draws general lessons for the relations between red (medical) and green (agricultural) biotechnology. He is also interested in the relationships between science, industry and medical practices; the transformations of medical research over the 20th century; scientific innovations and medical practices in genetics and cancerology; and history of biological pharmaceuticals.
Publications:
From Molecular Genetics to Genomics. Mapping Cultures of Twentieth Century Genetics. (2004), Co-editor with Hans-Jörg Rheinberger
“Eugénisme, démographie et stérilisations en France et en Grande-Bretagne”, in : Les enjeux de la stérilisation, A. Giami, H. Léridon (Eds), (2000).
“Mendelism and medicine : controlling human inheritance in local contextes,1930-1960”, in : Comptes rendus de l’Académie des sciences, (2000).

Philippe Pignarre is an historian, Professor at the University of Paris-VIII, where he is responsible for courses about psychotropics. He is a renowned specialist on the pharmaceutic industry and on the health security in France. He was the editor of the series « Les Empêcheurs de penser en rond».
Publications:
Comment la dépression est devenue une épidémie (2001)
Le grand secret de l'industrie pharmaceutique (2003)

Corinne Hayden is anthropologist, Assistant Professor at Berkeley University, California (USA). She was a Research Fellow in Social Anthropology, Girton College, University of Cambridge, between 2000-2004. Her work is focused on biodiversity, bioprospecting and the new politics of nature.
Publications:
When Nature Goes Public: The Making and Unmaking of Bio-Prospecting in Mexico (2003)
“Gender, Genetics and Generation: Reformulating Biology in Lesbian Kinship,” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Feb. 1995), 41-63. 
“A biodiversity sampler for the millennium” In Reproducing
reproduction: Kinship, power, and technological innovation, edited by Sarah Franklin and Helena Ragoné, 1998. 

Jerome Kassirer is Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. He has also taught at Harvard University and Yale University and he is a physician at the New England Medical Center (Boston). He was editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine between 1991 and 1999 and was member of the editorial board of Nephrology Forum, Tufts Health Science Review, Hypertension, The New Encyclopaedia Britannica (15th edition), Medical Decision  Making, Canadian Medical Association Journal. He is currently a member of the consultant editorial board of The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine and Aberrant Medical Practices, Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Publications:
On the Take: How Medicine’s Complicity with Big Business Can Endanger Your Health (2005).
Expert Guide to Allergy and Immunology (1999) with Raymond G. Slavin e Robert E. Reisman.
Learning Clinical Reasoning (1991) with Richard I. Kopelman.
Current Therapy in Medicine (1991, 1997) with Harry L. Greene.
Repairing Body Fluids: Principles and Practice (1989) with Donald E. Hricik e Jordan J Cohen.