all Michael Sandel stories

Stem cell issues discussed at Barker

50443248 — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:12:38 -0400

The second in a series of gatherings described by Michael Sandel as "conversations that transcend the areas that we normally populate" was a far cry from the first such conversation, conducted a month earlier.
The "Between Two Cultures" series, co-sponsored by the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) and the Humanities Center, is intended to foster understanding of and discussion about stem cell science and the social and ethical issues it raises. Scientists and humanists of diverse points of view take part in these talks. The inaugural session in late October, featuring a lecture on human cloning by Leon Kass, past director of the President's Council on Bioethics, developed into an intense, at times heated, debate.

Ethics of stem cell research front and center

50443248 — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 11:15:19 -0400

A top Bush bioethics adviser kicked off a new series of discussions about the ethics of stem cell and other scientific research on Thursday (Oct. 20), tangling with Harvard faculty members over the meaning of life and of family, and over the limits that society ought to impose on itself.

The discussion, at times brutally frank, centered on reproductive cloning, a procedure most within the scientific community firmly oppose and against which Harvard University has taken an official stand. Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005, presented a chapter of his 2002 book, "Life, Liberty and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics," to the group, gathered for the lunchtime event in the Barker Center's Thompson Room.

Stem cell science

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:35:57 -0400

"Stem-cell transplants are already performed every day in Harvard-affiliated hospitals -- and around the world," says Harvard Stem Cell Initiative codirector David Scadden, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Regenerative Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. So-called bone-marrow transplants, which transfer tens of thousands of cells of many different kinds to a patient, most critically transfer hematopoietic (adult blood) stem cells. The proliferative capacity of these cells is so great, says Scadden, that researchers have demonstrated in mice the regeneration of the entire blood and immune system from a single cell. Hematopoietic stem cells routinely save the lives of people with diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and immune deficiencies. Why is this promising area of research, with the potential to do so much good, so controversial? The seeming simplicity of the idea -- that there are stem cells that can generate new cells -- belies the complexity of the science and the ethical ramifications of its application. A special report from Harvard Magazine investigates the work that Harvard researchers are doing to understand all the ramifications of the stem-cell revolution.