STV 306 - Biotechnology and Society

Biotechnologies are currently migrating from the laboratory to a wide range of consumer products. In everything from foods to pharmaceuticals, genetic engineering is entering daily life. The biotechnology revolution will likely have as much of an impact on our lives as the information technology revolution. However, there is a wide and potentially dangerous gap between research and development on the one hand and societal awareness of its impact on the other. This course is intended to help students gain a deeper appreciation for the issues, including ethics, surrounding biotechnology and society. It will do this through an investigation of such interactions between biotechnologies and society as genetics and the law, foods and the media, and soil remediation and the environment. Consideration will also be given to the role of computing in biotech research and in the human genome project.