Research ethics education in the biosciences has not historically been a priority for research universities despite the fact that funding agencies, government regulators, and the parties involved in the research enterprise agree that it ought to be. The confluence of a number of factors, including scrutiny and regulation due to increased public awareness of the impact of basic research on society, increased public and private funding, increased diversity and collaboration among researchers, the impressive success and speed of research advances, and (...) high-profile cases of misconduct, have made it necessary to reexamine how the bioscience research community at all levels provides ethics education to its own. We discuss the need to and reasons for making ethics integral to the education of bioscientists, approaches to achieving this goal, challenges this goal presents, and responses to those challenges. (shrink)

A model is described for implementing a program in research ethics education in the face of federal and institutional mandates and current resource, disciplinary, and infrastructure limitations. Also discussed are the historical background, content and evaluation process of the workshop at the heart of the program, which reaches a diverse group of over 250 students per year—from first-year graduate students in basic research labs to clinical fellows. The workshop addresses central issues in both everyday laboratory ethics and in larger societal (...) questions. Goals include improving overall awareness of ethics guidelines and philosophy and enhancing skills in identifying and then analyzing the ethical components of situations. Pedagogies used and their effectiveness and that of the overall workshop and extended program are addressed. Programs like these have initiated a shift in the culture of basic research, which is a critical need given the current atmosphere. (shrink)

(2013). Acknowledging Levels of Racism in the Definition of “Difficult”. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 16-18. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.767964.

Proteins with seven conserved “helicase domains” play essential roles in all aspects of nucleic acid metabolism. Deriving energy from ATP hydrolysis, helicases alter the structure of DNA, RNA, or DNA:RNA duplexes, remodeling chromatin and modulating access to the DNA template by the transcriptional machinery. This review focuses on the diverse functions of these proteins in the process of RNA polymerase II transcription in eukaryotes. Known or putative helicases are required for general transcription initiation and for transcription-coupled DNA repair, and may (...) play important roles in elongation, termination, and transcript stability. Recent evidence suggests that helicase-domain-containing proteins are also involved in complexes that facilitate the activity of groups of seemingly unrelated genes. BioEssays 20:634–641, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons Inc. (shrink)