Dr. Bryan Cwik, Assistant Professor of Philosophy and University Studies at Portland State University, will be speaking at CMCI’s Brown Bag Lunch on Monday, February 11, 12:30 p.m., in the Collaboratorium.

Title: Moving Beyond ‘Therapy’ and ‘Enhancement’ in the Ethics of Gene Editing

Abstract: Since the advent of recombinant DNA technology, expectations (and trepidations) about the potential for altering genes and controlling our biology at the fundamental level have been sky high.  These expectations have gone largely unfulfilled.  The ability to eliminate all inherited diseases, choose traits, and make ourselves stronger, faster, and smarter is not in our foreseeable future.  But though the dream (or nightmare) of being able to control our biology is still far off, gene editing research has made enormous strides towards potential clinical uses in reproductive medicine.  My aim in is to argue that when it comes to determining permissible uses of gene editing in one important medical context – germline intervention in reproductive medicine – issues about enhancement and eugenics are, for the foreseeable future, a red herring.  Current research is taking us in a different direction, and discussions about the ethics of enhancement are of limited use in the place we appear to be headed.  Arguing about the permissibility of enhancement can do little to solve the issues we’re likely to encounter there, and drawing the line of permissibility at therapeutic uses of gene editing leaves unresolved important questions that need attention if clinical use of gene editing in reproductive medicine ever becomes a possibility.  Given the rapid pace of development in research on germline gene editing, these issues are in urgent need of attention by bioethicists and philosophers of medicine.  And this urgency is matched by their degree of difficulty.

Event: CMCI Brown Bag Lunch

Date:   Monday, November 12

Time:   12:30 – 1:30 p.m.

Place:   Collaboratorium, IRIC 352

Talk: “Performance of a bacterial cell as an energy conversion device in terms of energy-return-on-investment determined from atomic-detail structural models,” presented by Melih Sener, Theoretical and Computational Biophysics Group, Beckman Institute, UIUC, https://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~melih/

Abstract: Bioenergetic processes in cells involve hundreds of cooperating proteins and span length and time scales ranging from electronic excitation transfer (picoseconds) to organelle-scale diffusion and ATP synthesis (milliseconds). These disparate scales require a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches for determining structure and function at atomic, supra-molecular, and cell levels of organization. A cell-scale observable, namely, doubling time as a function of growth light intensity, is determined for a phototrophic bacterium, Rba. sphaeroides, using a multi-scale formalism for energy conversion. The approach is based on computing the energy-return-on-investment (EROI) time, defined as the time for the bacterium or a subcomponent to produce enough ATP to manufacture a new copy. The EROI is determined through atomic-detail structural and functional models of bacterial bioenergetic domains, employing AFM, cryo-electron tomography, mass spectrometry, crystallography, and spectroscopy data modalities. The hierarchy of time scales (ps-ms) is addressed via a chain of computational models for each scale, from electronic excitation transfer to structure-based rate kinetics, wherein the output of each model becomes an input parameter for the next scale. The EROI is formulated in relation to cell doubling time for a controlled growth environment that removes energy expenditure channels other than replication and base metabolism as well as energy input channels other than light absorption. Under these controlled conditions, the approach successfully reproduces light-dependence of growth behavior across nearly three orders of magnitude of illumination. Rational design principles for bioengineered energy solutions are revealed by identifying bottlenecks of energy conversion at protein level. The EROI also provides a systems-level integrative performance metric for quantifying evolutionary competitiveness between species as well as a comparison to artificial energy harvesting systems. Current efforts extending this approach to structural models from cyanobacterial and granal bioenergetic domains will also be presented.

Zoom link: https://uidaho.zoom.us/j/988406816

Meeting ID: 988 406 816

Aydin Mohseni, a mathematical philosopher at the University of California, Irvine, will be the featured speaker at the weekly CMCI Brown Bag Lunch on Monday, September 24.

Talk title: “On the Emergence of Minority Disadvantage: Testing the Cultural Red King Hypothesis.”

Abstract: The cultural red king effect predicts that differentials in group size may lead to inequitable outcomes for minority groups even in the absence of explicit or implicit bias. We test this prediction in an experimental context where subjects divided into groups engage in repeated play of a simplified Nash demand game. We run 14 trials involving a total of 112 participants. The results of the experiments are significant and suggestive: individuals in minority groups do indeed end up making low demands more frequently than those in majority groups, and so receive lower payoffs.

Dr. Michael Burnam-Fink will be the featured speaker at our weekly CMCI Brown Bag Lunch on Monday, September 10. His talk is titled “Visualizing Collaboration: Interactive Bibliometric Network Mapping for Evaluating Interdisciplinary Research Groups” and will take place at 12:30 in the Collaboratorium, IRIC 352.

Michael is an instructor at Arizona State University and holds a Ph.D in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology.  His work examines the relationship between knowledge and power in the context of 21^st century science and technology.  Michael was a Breakthrough Institute Breakthrough Generation Fellow and NSF IGERT Fellow.