The Global Ethics Corner: foundations, beliefs, and the teaching of biomedical and scientific ethics around the world

Abstract

The profound advances in the biomolecular sciences over the last decades have enabled similar advances in biomedicine. These advances have increasingly challenged our abilities to deploy them in an equitable and ethically acceptable manner. As such, it has become necessary and important to teach biomedical and scientific ethics to our students who will become the researchers, medical professionals, and global citizens of the future. As advances in the biosciences and medicine are made, developed, and used across the globe, our survival on an endangered planet requires global dialog and consensual action. To that end, a group of us from around the world have come together to describe the differing foundations of our ethical beliefs, and how ethical issues in biomedicine and in science are described and confronted in our countries. We hope to show the commonality in our beliefs and practices and to encourage readers from around the world to contribute to a continuing discussion through a new section of the journal, The Global Ethics Corner. V C 2017 by The International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 45(5): 385-395, 2017.

Present Challenges Besetting the Iranian Academia

“…In 2016, a handful of reports published in Science and Nature (1e3) highlighted some of the ethical issues concerning the Iranian academic output. While we maintain that the phenomena underlying these reports are inherently multifaceted (4,5) and emphatically value constructive criticism and self-reflection, we feel prompted to highlight three key threats presently overclouding the Iranian academic ambience.…”

Ethics and Systems Thinking in Biochemistry: A CRISPR-Based Activity for Undergraduate Students

“…Many recent biochemistry technologies may not only lead to enormous advances in medicine, chemistry, and materials science, but also can have profound society-wide ethical implications. The rise of CRISPR technology in the past decade exemplifies this duality of a nascent scientific tool that encompasses a vast potential for societal “good”, in terms of permanent cures for deadly and debilitating genetic diseases, while also being eminently capable of facilitating much less desirable social outcomes, such as further international inequality, ecological devastation, and the resurgence of eugenics . The purpose of this guided inquiry activity is to introduce undergraduate students to the biochemistry and capacity of CRISPR-based genetic engineering methods while concomitantly encouraging them to consider the potential ramifications of this technology using a systems-based approach …”

Call for papers on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice, and access (DEIJA) in molecular life sciences education

“…Essays that describe cross‐cultural discussions on common concerns (e.g., Ref. 20). Reflective teaching practices to probe student outcomes for issues of equity (e.g., Ref.…”