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STS.449

Introduction to Global Medicine: Bioscience, Technologies, Disparities, Strategies

Graduate · Historical course

Spring 2010

This class provides a space for medical students and MD/PhD students, as well as HASTS (History, Anthropology, Science, Technology, and Society) PhD students to discuss social and ethical issues in the biosciences and biotechnologies as they are being developed. Discussions are with course faculty and with leading figures in developing technologies such as George Daley or George Church in stem cell or genomics research, Bruce Walker or Pardis Sabeti in setting up laboratories in Africa, Paul Farmer and Partners in Health colleagues in building local support systems and first world quality care in Haiti, Peru, and Rwanda, and Amy Farber in building patient-centered therapeutic-outcome research for critical but "orphan" diseases. Goals include stimulating students to think about applying their learning in Boston to countries around the world, including using the experiences they have had in their home countries or research experience abroad. Goals also include a mix of patient-doctor care perspectives from medical anthropology, and moving upstream in the research chain to questions of how to move discoveries from basic research through the pipelines into clinical and bedside care.

Readings

Fall 2005 · Social Studies of Bioscience and Biotech

Topics

  • Introduction and Overview: Social and Ethical Questions
  • Polymers for Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering - Prof. Robert Langer, Kenneth J. Germeshausen Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT
  • Embodiment and Structural Biology, Phenomenology of Medicine - Natasha Myers (STS Program, MIT)
  • Tissue Engineering - Dr. Joseph Vacanti, John Homans Professor of Surgery and Director of Pediatric Transplanation, MGH
  • Clinical Narratives - Prof. Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Professor of Social Medicine, HMS
  • Photomedicine and Non-invasive Technologies - Dr. R. Rox Anderson, Director Wellman Center for Photomedicine and Professor of Dermatology, MGH, HMS, HST
  • Multidisciplinary Research - Prof. Brian Seed, Professor of Genetics and Health, Science and Technology, Director of Thematic Center for Computational Biology, MGH, HMS, HST
  • Angiogensis; Translation from Bench to Clinic - Dr. Judah Folkman, Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Professor of Cell Biology, HMS
  • Stem Cells - Dr. George Q. Daley, M.D./Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, HMS, Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s, and Dana-Farber
  • Facilitating Multidisciplinary Research at MGH - Dr. John Parrish, Director MGH-Harvard Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Director of CIMIT, Chief Dermatology Service, MGH, and founding Director Wellman Center for Photomedicine
  • Organ Transplanation in Turkey, Ethical Models of Organ Donation - Aslihan Sanal, STS Program, MIT
  • Ethics in Medicine - Prof. Dan Brock, Prof. of Social Medicine and Director of the Division of Medical Ethics, Harvard Medical School
  • Wrap-up

Readings

  • SES #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction and Overview: Social and Ethical Questions · READINGS: Fischer, Michael M. J. “Four Frameworks for Social and Ethical Questions.” 2005. ( PDF ) ↗
    Reading assignment
  • SES #: 2 · TOPICS: Polymers for Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering - Prof. Robert Langer, Kenneth J. Germeshausen Professor of Chemical Engineering, MIT · READINGS: Jasanoff, Sheila. Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, introduction, chapter 1, and 2. ISBN: 9780691118116.
    Reading assignment
  • Langer, R., and D. A. Tirell. “Designing materials for biology and medicine.” Nature 428, no. 6982 (April 1, 2004): 487-92.
    Listed reading
  • Langer, R. “Where a Pill Won’t Reach.” Sci Am 288, no. 4 (April 2003): 50-7.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 3 · TOPICS: Embodiment and Structural Biology, Phenomenology of Medicine - Natasha Myers (STS Program, MIT) · READINGS: Myers, Natasha. “Embodiments and the Body-Work of Modeling in Protein Crystallography.” 2005. (Manuscript)
    Reading assignment
  • Good, Byron. “The experience of being a medical student.” Chapter 3 in Medicine, Rationality and Experience: An Anthropological Perspective . Cambridge, UK; New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1993. ISBN: 9780521415583.
    Listed reading
  • Prentice, Rachel. “The Anatomy of a Surgical Simulation: The Mutual Articulation of Bodies in and through the Machine.” Social Studies of Science 35, no. 6 (2005): 837-866.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 4 · TOPICS: Tissue Engineering - Dr. Joseph Vacanti, John Homans Professor of Surgery and Director of Pediatric Transplanation, MGH · READINGS: Vacanti, J. P., and R. Langer. “Tissue Engineering: the design and fabrication of living replacement devices for surgical reconstruction and transplanation.” Lancet 354 (1999): 32-34. (Suppl 1)
    Reading assignment
  • Langer, R., and J. P. Vacanti. “Tissue Engineering.” Science 260, no. 5110 (May 14, 1993): 920-6.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 5 · TOPICS: Clinical Narratives - Prof. Mary-Jo DelVecchio Good, Professor of Social Medicine, HMS · READINGS: Good, M. J., I. Kuter, S. Powell, et al. “Medicine on the Edge: Conversations with Oncologists.” Technoscientific Imaginaries: Conversations, Profiles, and Memoirs . Edited by George E. Marcus. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN: 9780226504438.
    Reading assignment
  • Good, Mary-Jo DelVecchio. American Medicine: the Quest for Competence . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995, chapter 8, p. 265. ISBN: 9780520088962.
    Listed reading
  • Good, M. J. “The biotechnical embrace.” Cult Med Psychiatry 25, no. 4 (December 2001): 395-410.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 6 · TOPICS: Photomedicine and Non-invasive Technologies - Dr. R. Rox Anderson, Director Wellman Center for Photomedicine and Professor of Dermatology, MGH, HMS, HST · READINGS: Pitsillides, C. M., E. K. Joe, X. Wei, R. R. Anderson, and C. P. Lin. “Selective cell targeting with light-absorbing microparticles and nanoparticles.” Biophys J 84, no. 6 (June 2003): 4023-4032.
    Reading assignment
  • Middelkamp-Hup, M. A., I. Sanchez-Carpintero, S. Kossodo, P. Waterman, S. Gonzalez, M. C. Mihm, Jr., and R. R. Anderson. “Photodynamic therapy for cutaneous proliferative vascular tumors in a mouse model.” J Invest Dermatol 121, no. 3 (September 2003): 634-639.
    Listed reading
  • Manstein, D., G. S. Herron, R. K. Sink, H. Tanner, and R. R. Anderson. “Fractional photothermolysis: a new concept for cutaneous remodeling using microscopic patterns of thermal injury.” Lasers Surg Med 34, no. 5 (2004): 426-438.
    Listed reading
  • Yaroslavsky, A. N, J. Barbosa, V. Neel, C. DiMarzio, and R. R. Anderson. “Combining multispectral polarized light imaging and confocal microscopy for localization of nonmelanoma skin cancer.” J Biomed Opt 10, no. 1 (January-February 2005): 14011.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 7 · TOPICS: Multidisciplinary Research - Prof. Brian Seed, Professor of Genetics and Health, Science and Technology, Director of Thematic Center for Computational Biology, MGH, HMS, HST · READINGS: Yang, Y., and B. Seed. “Site-specific gene targeting in mouse embryonic stem cells with intact bacterial artificial chromosomes.” Nat Biotechnol 21, no. 4 (April 2003): 447-451.
    Reading assignment
  • Randow, F., and B. Seed. “Endoplasmic reticulum chaperone gp96 is required for innate immunity but not cell viability.” Nat Cell Biol 3, no. 10 (October 2001): 891-6.
    Listed reading
  • Kowalczyk, Liz. “Lucrative Licensing Deals with Drugs, Biotech Firms are Raising Ethics Issues for Hospitals.” Boston Globe (March 24, 2002).
    Listed reading
  • “NeoGenesis and Massachussetts General Hospital Announce Drug Discovery Collaboration Agreement.” PRNewswire - Neogenesis , July 23, 2002.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 8 · TOPICS: Angiogensis; Translation from Bench to Clinic - Dr. Judah Folkman, Andrus Professor of Pediatric Surgery and Professor of Cell Biology, HMS · READINGS: Folkman, J. “Angiogenesis.” In Harrison’s Textbook of Internal Medicine . Edited by E. Braunwald, A. S. Fauci, D. L. Kasper, S. L. Hauser, D. L. Longo, and J. L. Jameson. 15th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2001, pp. 417-530. ISBN: 9780079136862 (set).
    Reading assignment
  • ISBN: 9780070072732 (v. 1), and ISBN: 9780070072749 (v. 2).
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Fighting cancer by attacking its blood supply.” Sci Am 275, no. 3 (September 1996): 150-4.
    Listed reading
  • ———. “Seminars in Medicine of the Beth Israel Hospital, Boston. Clinical applications of research on angiogenesis.” N Engl J Med 333, no. 26 (December 28, 1995): 1757-63.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 9 · TOPICS: Stem Cells - Dr. George Q. Daley, M.D./Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, HMS, Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s, and Dana-Farber · READINGS: Daley, G. Q. “Customized human embryonic stem cells.” Nat Biotechnol 23, no. 7 (July 2005): 826-8.
    Reading assignment
  • Daley, G. Q., M. J. Sandel, and J. D. Moreno. “Stem cell research: science, ethics and policy.” Med Ethics (Burlington, MA) 12, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 5.
    Listed reading
  • Daley, G. Q. “Missed opportunities in embryonic stem-cell research.” N Engl J Med 351, no. 7 (August 12, 2004): 627-8.
    Listed reading
  • Committee on Guidelines for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. “Guidelines for human embryonic stem cell research.” Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2005.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 10 · TOPICS: Facilitating Multidisciplinary Research at MGH - Dr. John Parrish, Director MGH-Harvard Cutaneous Biology Research Center, Director of CIMIT, Chief Dermatology Service, MGH, and founding Director Wellman Center for Photomedicine · READINGS: Stokes, Donald E. Pasteur’s Quadrant: Basic Science and Technological Innovation . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1997, chapter 1. ISBN: 9780815781783.
    Reading assignment
  • Abelmann, Walter H., ed. Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology: The First 25 Years 1970-1995 . Cambridge, MA: The Division, 2004. ISBN: 9780674014589.
    Listed reading
  • SES #: 11 · TOPICS: Organ Transplanation in Turkey, Ethical Models of Organ Donation - Aslihan Sanal, STS Program, MIT · READINGS: Sanal, Aslihan. ““Robin Hood” of techno-turkey or organ trafficking in the state of ethical beings.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 28, no. 3 (September 2004): 281-309.
    Reading assignment
Sources