Inside Pandora’s Box:
A Non-Specialist Look at Five Medical Advances
with Spectacular Potential but Enormous Ethical Complexity
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explore ~ experience ~ expand
Monday, September 14 - Friday, September 18, 2009
No fee
Organizing Faculty:
John Boothroyd, Microbiology and Immunology
In collaboration with the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics
A class for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from diverse disciplines, with a special invitation to those outside the life sciences, to learn about and discuss the ethical implications behind five of the most exciting but ethically complex breakthroughs in modern medicine.
The class will meet for five consecutive mornings, starting each day with an in-depth but non-technical explanation of that day’s subject followed by break-out discussions on the ethical implications of the advance. Each morning will end with a reconvening of the group as a whole to create policy recommendations for the future.
Topics will be selected by a vote of participants (in June, once the participant list is complete) from a list that the participants will assemble. Possible topics include:
- stem cells and regenerative medicine; what’s the difference between embryonic and adult stem cells and what diseases can they actually be used to cure?
- personalized medicine based on genome sequence; what’s the right prognosis and treatment for YOU?
- ancestry determination based on genome sequence; where do you really come from?
- the explosion of autoimmune diseases; are we TOO clean?
- using genetically engineered animals as human organ donors; can/should we engineer a pig to be immunologically compatible with humans?
- the threat of pandemic flu; hype or just around the corner?
- the reality of the AIDS pandemic; why no vaccine, why no women-centered preventions?
Goals of this course:
- Bring together grad students and postdocs from diverse disciplines to discuss complex issues in an intellectual, multi-dimensional way. While all are welcome, we especially hope to get individuals from outside the sciences in general, and the biosciences in particular.
- Educate a diverse group of such individuals about a series of topics of current attention and great importance in the area of biomedicine.
- Provide such individuals with the tools to grasp the ethical considerations surrounding such topics.