Workshop Session
Presenters:
Lawrence Hunter
Director, Computational Bioscience Program, UC Denver
Mark Yarborough, Director
Center for Bioethics and the Humanities, UC Denver
Title: Computational Bioethics: Issues and Didactic Strategies
Abstract: The traditional bioethics curriculum, as taught to bench and clinical scientists, does not usually focus on the issues that arise in computational research. Like their traditional colleagues, bioinformaticians need to know about the responsible conduct of research, and the rules governing experiments on human beings, but they also need to understand issues related to computerized medical records, genetic databases, privacy & security, and intellectual property, among others. The social context in which they work is also different than traditional biomedical researchers, and issues around interdisciplinarity, peer communication, and how to gain and retain trust have aspects that are unique to the computational biosciences. The panelists for this discussion created and team taught a computational bioethics course this year, and will discuss their approach and lessons learned.