Friday, April 11, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

VIRTUAL (flyer)

On Friday, April 11 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Christof Koch.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Consciousness and its Place in Nature

Any scientific theory of consciousness, here meant as any experience – feeling-like-something, seeing, smelling, thinking, fearing, dreaming – needs to not only explain the relationship between experience and its substrate, the neural correlate of consciousness, but also why different experiences feel the way they do – why space feels spatially extended, why time flows and why colors feel different from an infected tooth or the taste of Nutella. Most contemporary theories of consciousness are based on computational functionalism. Integrated Information Theory takes a purely operational approach rooted in causal power. IIT argues that the neuronal correlates of consciousness, the maximum of intrinsic cause-effect power, are the posterior hot zone, and that certain types of meditative or psychedelic experiences may go together with a “silent” cortex. I will discuss clinical progress achieved in locating the footprints of such experiences to the posterior part of the cerebral cortex and in reliably detecting the presence of covert consciousness in patients with Disorder of Consciousness.

Christof Koch, PhD, Meritorious Investigator, Allen Institute, Seattle, Chief Scientist, Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, Santa Monica

Christof Koch PhD, is a neuroscientist best known for his studies and writings exploring the basis of consciousness, starting with the molecular biologist Francis Crick. Trained as a physicist, Christof was for 27 years a professor of biology and engineering at the California Institute of Technology. In 2011, he joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle as their Chief Scientist, becoming the President in 2015. He is now Meritorious Investigator at the Allen Institute and the Chief Scientist of the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation, with its focus on understanding consciousness, and how this knowledge can benefit humanity. His latest book is Then I am myself the world.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, April 18, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, April 18 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Kim TallBear, Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society.

A zoom option may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

From Feminist Science Studies to Native-Led Science for Land and Life

Indigenous peoples are often at the receiving end of the colonial gaze, including that of scientific researchers whose work has served US and Canadian national development. Kim TallBear is best known for her anthropological study of colonial narratives such as that of the “Vanishing Indian” that animate human population genetics research. Over the past fifteen years, she has worked with scientists and social scientists to channel feminist and Indigenous analyses of science into training Indigenous scientists in critical approaches to genomics. The resulting program, Summer internship for INdigenous peoples in Genomics (SING), goes beyond critique to transform science to support Indigenous governance and life. SING Canada, founded in 2018, surpasses diversity and inclusion, and reaches toward decolonization by helping develop critical Indigenous genomics to support Indigenous governance and land back projects. This talk touches on both the disciplinary/theoretical underpinnings and programmatic details of such training.

Kim TallBear, Professor, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society

Kim TallBear (Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate) is Professor and Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Peoples, Technoscience, and Society, Faculty of Native Studies, University of Alberta. She is the author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science. Dr. TallBear is a regular panelist on the Media Indigena podcast and a regular media commentator on topics including Indigenous peoples, science, and technology; self-indigenization in the US and Canada; and Indigenous sexualities. You can follow her Substack newsletter, Unsettle: Indigenous affairs, cultural politics & (de)colonization at https://kimtallbear.substack.com.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, May 02, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, May 02 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Consciousness and Neuroethics: Exploring the Boundaries of Personhood and Research

Ethics Consciousness remains one of the most profound and debated topics in neuroscience, philosophy, and bioethics. This presentation explores diverse perspectives on consciousness, from philosophical frameworks like dualism and monism to cutting-edge neuroscientific approaches using human brain organoids. As organoid research advances, ethical questions surrounding personhood, animal welfare, and the moral status of artificially grown neural structures become increasingly urgent. By examining case studies of human brain organoids, chimeric models, and neural restoration techniques, we will discuss the ethical challenges of defining consciousness and its implications for medical research, end-of-life care, and the future of neuroscience.

Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji, Assistant Research Scientist, UCSC Genomics Institute.

Dr. Mohammed Mostajo-Radji is an Assistant Research Scientist at the UCSC Genomics Institute, where his is part of the Braingeneers group, a multidisciplinary collective of geneticists, neuroscientists, and engineers focused on the human brain specification and function. His research explores neuronal specification and fate plasticity in the cerebral cortex using brain organoid models. Additionally, he leads the Live Cell Biotechnology Discovery Lab, which develops cloud-based experimental science education technologies. Dr. Mostajo-Radji earned his PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Harvard University and completed postdoctoral training at University of California San Francisco Department of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, May 16, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

VIRTUAL (flyer)

On Friday, May 16 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Benjamin Capps.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

A One Health Guide to Bioethics

Benjamin Capps, Associate Professor, Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University.

Benjamin Capps is  is an associate professor in the Department of Bioethics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University.  Before moving to Canada in 2014, he was a member of faculty at the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore (2008-2014).  Since 2017, Ben has chaired the Human Genome Organisation (HUGO) Committee on Ethics, Law and Society. He has published One Health Environmentalism (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Contested Cells: Global Perspectives on the Stem Cell Debate (co-editor, Imperial Collage Press, 2010), and Addiction Neurobiology: Ethical and Social Implications (with others, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009).  In 2024, he was awarded a grant to lead a residential workshop at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva, on The Ecological Genome Project and the Promises of Ecogenomics for Society.  He is a member of the Humanimal Trust’s scientific committee (registered charity, UK, since 2022), and served on the Neuroethics Working Group of the Bioethics Advisory Committee (Singapore; 2011-2014), and Pro-Tem National Oversight Committee for Human-Animal Combinations in Stem Cell Research (Ministry of Health, Singapore; 2011-2012).  He has been an advisor for the World Health Organisation, World Federation for Animals, Group of Chief Scientific Advisors to the European Commission, and UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, May 09, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, May 09 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Stephanie Malia Fullerton.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Ethical Implications of Legacy Data Storage and Use: the HGDP as Case Study

Much biomedical research, including genetic research, relies on easily accessible, individual level data on hundreds or thousands of research participants. As the need for larger and larger sample sizes grows and where prospective data collection is challenging, the norm is for investigators to draw on in silico genomic data derived from previous studies, available open-access or via various controlled-access data sharing mechanisms. One such open-access resource, the Human Genome Diversity Project collection, includes cell lines from 1063 anonymous individuals sampled from 52 populations around the world. The cell lines were developed from specimens collected decades prior to the collection being made available in 2002, and in partial response to controversy about prospective collection in Indigenous and marginalized communities. There is no extant record of what biospecimen donors were told about the ways that their samples would be used and very few of those involved in collecting the original samples are still living. Nevertheless, the cell line collection and extensive genetic data derived from the cell lines, including whole genome sequence information, continue to be widely used in many kinds of human genetic research. While evidence of individual harm is lacking, Dr. Fullerton will argue that ongoing open-access use of data of unclear provenance poses numerous risks for the broader genomics research community.

Malia Fullerton, Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, University of Washington School of Medicine.

Malia Fullerton, DPhil, is Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine. She received a doctorate in Human Population Genetics from the University of Oxford and later re-trained in Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) research with a fellowship from the NIH National Human Genome Research Institute. Dr. Fullerton contributes to a range of empirical projects focused on clinical translational genomics including in collaboration with the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network, the Polygenic Risk Methods in Diverse Populations (PRIMED) Consortium, and the Human Pangenome Reference Consortium (HPRC).

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, May 30, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, May 30 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Joanna Radin.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Tales From the Crypt: Craniometry, Computers and Mass Culture in 1960s Cambridge

This is a story about what happened when an enterprising Ivy league, pre-med majoring in anthropology encountered a machine he was told could, among other miracles, transform the spoils of generations of racial conquest into anti-racist science. It is a cautionary tale, not unlike the ones this pre-med would become best known for when he abandoned medicine for mass-market publishing and Hollywood. I narrate this account not as a thriller, adventure, or mystery, but as a bad romance. Or more specifically a necromance, born out of opportunistic relationships to the dead and mass cultural movements to refuse civil rights. The story unfolds between Cambridge, UK and Cambridge, MA in the 1960s. Specifically, collections of skulls at Cambridge University and the gender and racially segregated halls of Harvard College. It traces the intersections of Black Power and the power of computers—specifically the IBM 7090–as a strategy for intervening in entrenched ideas about human racial and sexual difference. I follow the consequences of this skullduggery into the present, after calls for the release of human remains from Anthropology’s crypts amidst the Black Lives Matter movement during the twilight of Affirmative Action.

Joanna Radin, Associate Professor of History of Medicine, Yale University,

Joanna Radin is Associate Professor of History of Medicine at Yale University, where she is a core member and Director of Graduate Studies of the Program in History of Science and Medicine. She also holds appointments in the Departments of History and of Anthropology and is an affiliate of the Programs in American Studies and in Religion and Modernity. She is the author of Life on Ice: A History of New Uses for Cold Blood (Chicago 2017) and with Emma Kowal, the co-editor of Cryopolitics: Frozen Life in a Melting World (MIT 2017). Her most recent publication is an essay in The Yale Review, “Is Celebrity Real?”

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.

Friday, June 06, 2025

1:20 – 2:25 pm 

J. Baskin Aud 101 (flyer)

On Friday, June 06 at 1:20 pm, you are invited to join S&J affiliate and Associate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering Karen Miga’s BME 80G Bioethics course for a talk by Tina Lasisi.

A zoom option or recording may be available for members of the campus community who cannot attend in person. Contact Colleen Stone (colleen@ucsc.edu) to request access.

Guilty by Genetic Association: Database Disparities, Family Structure, and the Racialized Reach of DNA Surveillance

Forensic DNA databases disproportionately contain the genetic profiles of Black Americans, reflecting systemic biases in policing practices and inequitable application of DNA collection laws. Yet, the ethical implications of genetic surveillance extend beyond individual inclusion, implicating entire families and communities due to shared genetic ties. Historical differences in family structure—characterized by higher variance in family size among Black Americans—further compound this disparity. Larger family sizes increase genetic detectability through familial DNA searches, effectively expanding surveillance across genetically related individuals, even when those individuals are not themselves the initial target of investigation.This dynamic exemplifies how technologies initially designed under one scientific paradigm—identifying single individuals through a limited set of genetic markers—can evolve, gaining unforeseen capabilities like familial identification. As genetic data continues to accumulate in diverse databases, including commercial ventures such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing companies, the potential for future uses beyond original intentions increases dramatically. This underscores the need for proactive ethical reflection and policy development to anticipate and mitigate unintended disparities, ensuring that the accumulation and repurposing of genetic data does not deepen existing racial injustices or create new vulnerabilities.

Tina Lasisi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan.

Tina Lasisi is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan. Her research integrates population genetics, evolutionary biology, and anthropology to understand human biological variation, particularly focusing on hair, skin, and pigmentation. Her current work examines the ethical and social implications of forensic genetics, particularly how systemic disparities in genetic databases contribute to racialized surveillance. In addition to her academic work, she is committed to public scholarship, engaging in science communication initiatives that promote a more accurate and nuanced understanding of human variation.

Co-hosted by the UCSC Department of Biomolecular Engineering, the Genomics Institute, and the Science & Justice Research Center.