This case has students prepare to simulate a hearing on possible treatment of Eric for his ALS using stem cells. Since he is Catholic, there is a religious dimension to consider. It includes good witnesses such as James Thompson, John Gearhart, and Leon Kass. I find it very helpful for non-majors classes in stem cells and human cloning. It isn’t quite up to date, though, having been prepared in 2005.
Suggestions
I have added some characters:
- Shinyu Yamanaka, who in 2007 was able to reprogram skin cells to pluripotency.
- Elizabeth Blackburn, the scientist Bush fired from his ethics committee.
- Jonathan Moreno, Obama’s organizer of his Bioethics Committee.
New References
I like to have the students do this case while they are reading Christopher Scott’s book Stem Cells Now: From the Experiment That Shook the World to the New Politics of Life (Pi Press, 2006) and papers updating it.
I also like to use Potent Biology, the videos produced by HHMI on stem cells, which are available for free from the HHMI web site.
Also the following articles:
- The Yamanaka paper: Takahashi, K., Tanabe, K., Ohnuki, M., Narita, M., Ichisaka, T., Tomoda, K., and Yamanaka, S. 2007. Induction of pluripotent stem cells from adult human fibroblasts by defined factors. Cell 131(5):861–72. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2007.11.019
- Ethical issues re iPS cells: Insoo, Hyun. 2008. Stem cells from skin cells: the ethical questions. Hastings Center Report 38, no. 1:20–22.
Comments submitted 11/19/2009 by:
Laura Hoopes
Department of Biology
Pomona College
Claremont, CA 91711
lhoopes@pomona.edu
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