Spring 2003
The
Challenge
page
1 | 2 |
3 | 4 |
5 | 6 |
7 | 8
| 9 |
10 | 11
GENETIC
IMPACT
THE
SEQUENCING OF the human genome, the basis for all of human life,
presents both tremendous promise and tremendous risk. UCLA’s
Center for Society, the Individual and Genetics (CSIG) will tackle
the often difficult issues that are raised by this new technology
and its impact on society.
“The
impact of genetics is apparent in every academic field,” and
the goal of the new center is to “anticipate those societal
impacts and try to address them prospectively, rather than retrospectively
and reactively,” says Edward R.B. McCabe, a pediatrician and
geneticist who heads the center.
While
the human species may be enthralled by the advanced technology that
has allowed scientists to decipher the codes of life, there exists
a tension between the interests of individuals and the interests
of society, says McCabe, who is executive chair of the Department
of Pediatrics, physician-in-chief of the Mattel Children’s
Hospital at UCLA and chair of the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human
Services’ Advisory Committee on Genetics, Health and Society.
CSIG
is a broadly interdisciplinary enterprise that will tackle issues
ranging from ethical and legal impacts of the Human Genome Project
to its broader cultural impact on business, literature, public policy
and the arts. The center’s approach, says McCabe, “is
very UCLA in its multidisciplinary nature. Because we’re a
relatively young university, we are much less hierarchal.”
Collaborations across the boundaries of disciplines occur more freely
here than elsewhere, he says. “That’s a very different
culture, something we just do naturally at UCLA that isn’t
so natural at other institutions.”
Because
of that natural crossover, McCabe says, CSIG makes it possible “to
really engage the intellectual splendor of UCLA — wonderful,
creative people in so many disciplines — in addressing these
issues from different perspectives and bringing them to life so
that we can help educate our community.”
http://www.arc2.ucla.edu/csig
—
J.L.E.
<previous>
<next>
|