New course focuses on biotechnology ethics

A new course, to be taught for the first time next spring, promises an in-depth examination of the issues and controversies that surround modern biotechnology.

Taught by Robert Streiffer, a professor in the Program in Medical Ethics and the Department of Philosophy, the four-credit course will center on such issues as patenting life, technology and risk assessment as applied to pesticide-producing crops, alleged regulatory failures in the oversight of biotechnology, and democratic considerations involved in the proper regulation of biotechnology.

Streiffer says the course is aimed at upper-level undergraduates and graduate students and is intended to complement the Medical Ethics Program’s current coverage of ethical issues which arise from the application of biotechnology to humans. The course will probe the application of modern biotechnology across the spectrum of non-human life — from microbes to plants and animals.

The course was just approved and so is not listed in the spring UW–Madison Timetable. It is open to qualified, interested students for the spring semester.

Students who need to request consent for enrollment may contact Streiffer by e-mail: rstreiffer@facstaff.wisc.edu