Science on Tap – Quench Your Thirst

March 5th, 2012
6 PM to 9 PM
The Wicklow Pub
610 Stamps Landing
Vancouver, BC

Please RSVP: cafescientifique2011@gmail.com

BODY PARTS FOR SCIENCE? WHO OWNS YOUR ORGAN?

Imagine:
Your kidney cancer is caught early and doctors remove the organ in a hospital. The operation saves your life.

But what happens to the tissue that was removed? Do you maintain any ethical or legal rights to your tissue once it is outside your body? If not, then who does? The hospital, the surgeon or a research scientist?

What responsibilities do scientists have toward patient samples and specimens?

There are varied and sometimes controversial answers. Should the scientists decide because the benefits of research to the community outweigh the rights of the individual? Or should any experimental use of human tissue be looked at as an inhumane act which should be banned?

These are the hot-button questions that are debated even now in our hospitals and universities. Where do you stand?

You are invited to join the debate in our next Café Scientifique session.

Professor Michael McDonald, Professor Emeritus of Applied Ethics and the founding Director of the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics.
Professor Inanc Birol, School of Computing Science, Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency.

Moderator: Dr. Frances Lock

Presented by CIHR Café Scientifique