Who Owns Life? lecture Thursday 6/25 at 7 PM

[Guest guest]

[http://continuingstudies.stanford.edu/publicprograms/event.php?eid=20084_EVT%20\

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Please join us for Stanford's acclaimed Summer Science Lecture Series on the

lawn adjacent to Stanford's Cantor Arts Center on four Thursday evenings. You

are invited to come early and wander through the art museum, buy dinner in the

Art Center's Cool Café or bring your own picnic, and then settle on the lawn

outside to hear informal lectures about cutting-edge research from four of

Stanford's most esteemed professors.

 

We promise that all of the talks will be delivered in terms understandable to

the lay public. So bring your entire family (high school age and up) and enjoy!

 

Outdoor Science Talk 1: Who Owns Life?

Thursday, June 25

7:00 - 8:30 pm

On lawn outside Cantor Arts Center

FREE; no registration required

Open to the public

 

The " ownership of life " has become one of the most central and vehemently

debated issues facing scientists working on isolating human stem cells and

engineering new forms of life. What is life? What is natural? Do we want to

promote the commercial development of these technologies -- and when? Are we

somehow turning life into a commodity in the marketplace?

 

This lecture will bring together many thought-provoking voices and perspectives

on the issues of " owning life " including legal, scientific, ethical, and

economic. From the patenting of genes and organisms such as the Chakrabarty

oil-eating bacteria, to the ownership of our bodies and bodily tissues, these

are among the most compelling moral and social issues facing our society today

and will form the critical foundation of discussions for years to come.

 

DAVID C. MAGNUS, Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics; Co-Chair, Ethics Committee,

Stanford Hospital; Associate Professor of Pediatrics

David Magnus received a PhD in philosophy from Stanford and has published

articles on a range of topics in bioethics, particularly on issues concerning

genetic technology, cloning, and stem cell research. He teaches medical genetics

in the Stanford School of Medicine.