Students test genomes in KIE-led class

An article on the Georgetown University homepage highlights a recent class offering in the KIE’s EthicsLab:

Students confronted bioethics issues firsthand in a Georgetown Introduction to Bioethics course in which they had the choice to sequence their genome for free using a popular genetic testing kit.

If they chose to take the test, they would have access to information about their ancestral roots, as well as access to raw data that could be analyzed to glean health or medical information.

[…]

The class, co-taught by Maggie Little, associate professor of philosophy department and director of Georgetown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and designer Arjun Dhillon, involved a studio-based model of learning that aims to foster creativity, experimentation, risk-taking and an authentic engagement with key issues in bioethics.

Read the whole article »