The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of Our Most Vital Organ | How To Academy
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Mon, 14 October 2024

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm BST

The Beating Heart: The Art and Science of Our Most Vital Organ

Oxford Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine Robin Choudhury

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The story of the heart is the story of human history. Distinguished cardiologist Robin Choudhury explores the place of this incredible organ across three millennia of science and art with filmmaker David Malone.

The heart: no other organ has commanded such attention through the millennia. From portrayals in Egyptian Books of the Dead to depictions in religious and secular art of the Middle Ages; from Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci to Frida Kahlo and Matisse, the heart is by far the most richly depicted of all the organs in the body. But why?

Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Oxford, Professor Robin Choudhury joins David Malone to investigate the interplay between depictions of the heart from successive eras and the prevailing cultural concepts – religious, social, philosophical – of each. In parallel, he will consider how the ‘scientific’ understanding of the function of the heart has unfolded over 2,500 years: from Aristotle to the Renaissance and modern day cardiology.

Don’t miss this journey into the heart of human history, and discover how our most vital organ has shaped our very understanding of ourselves.

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Robin Choudhury

Oxford Cardiologist

Robin Choudhury is Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford and a practising cardiologist. His clinical expertise is in the treatment of heart attack, and he also runs a laboratory working on molecular and cellular mechanisms of heart injury and repair. He is a Fellow of Balliol College and of the Royal College of Physicians and is a former Wellcome Senior Research Fellow. He is co-editor of the Handbook of Cardiology Emergencies (OUP); and contributor to the Oxford Textbook of Medicine (OUP). In 2013, he led a group at the Oxford Acute Vascular Imaging Centre (of which he was founding director) using MRI to test, for the first time in a living subject, the 500-year-old theories of Leonardo da Vinci on the movement of blood across the aortic valve.

David Malone

Award-winning Science Filmmaker

David Malone is a filmmaker and TV presenter whose documentaries include Testing God, Soul Searching (both Channel 4), Dangerous Knowledge and The Secret Life of Waves (both BBC). He is the author of The Debt Generation.

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