LAWRENCE — An internationally known heart disease expert will give a free lecture at the University of Kansas.

Dr. Kent Thornburg is known for his work on how genetics, prenatal nutrition and other factors can create risk for childhood obesity and heart disease later in life.

His lecture "Discovering the Developmental Roots of Heart Disease" is scheduled for 7 p.m. Thursday at KU's Spooner Hall (map). It is open to the public.

Thornburg is director of the Heart Research Center at Oregon Health & Science University and is a professor of cardiovascular medicine there. He helped establish the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease in 2003, a group that promotes research of the fetal and developmental origins of disease including obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

The lecture is part of a KU series focused on "Promoting Well-Being and Finding Cures," a component of the university's new Bold Aspirations strategic plan.