Trent Continuing Education Offers New Course on Science and Ethics

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Cloning and Animal Organ Transplants among Topics to be Discussed in Course Beginning October 15

Thursday, October 4, 2007, Peterborough

Trent’s Continuing Education program is bringing the debate around animal cloning and the use of animals as substitutes for human organ donors to the classroom with a new course entitled Science & Ethics: Who Risks, Who Benefits? Who Decides?, which begins later this month.

The new course will explore and discuss the various impacts, potential risks, and possible benefits of xeno-transplantation, the transplant of tissues and organs from non-humans to humans, and the idea of taking genetically altered animals, cloning them and harvesting their organs. The course will also pose such questions as: Can one individual, or one nation, proceed with a technology that places others at risk without involving them in the decision? Are there other ways to solve the shortage of viable organs? What are the implications of informed consent? Who decides? Live television coverage of transplants will also be featured.

Science & Ethics: Who Risks, Who Benefits? Who Decides? is being taught by internationally-recognized scholar and motivational speaker, Dr. Betsy McGregor, who specializes in ethical and gender issues in the fields of biotechnology and life sciences. Dr. McGregor, who is currently a senior research associate at Trent University, has worked extensively in policy development and partnership-building roles around the world, with such institutions as Harvard University, the United Nations, MIT Summer Institute, Canadian Institutes for Health Research and the Canadian International Development Agency. In the 1990s, she was a part of Canada’s delegation at the UNESCO negotiations leading to the UN Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights.

“There are no simple answers,” Dr. McGregor states. “Take the course, join the citizen’s debate and add your opinion – no science needed.”

Science & Ethics: Who Risks, Who Benefits? Who Decides? is being offered as an evening course, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. over six Mondays, October 15 to November 19. The cost is $145 plus GST or $131 plus GST for students, seniors, or alumni.

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For more information or to register, please contact Continuing Education at (705) 748-1229.