Norton Lecture to feature Glenn McGee

Glenn McGee, professor of philosophy, history and sociology of science and bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is associate director of the Center for Bioethics, will deliver the David Norton Memorial Lecture, speaking on “What’s in the Dish? Stem Cells and the New Ethics of Human Development,” at 7:15 p.m., Monday, Dec. 3, at the Delaware Biotechnology Institute, 15 Innovation Way, Newark.

The lecture, named in honor of the late University professor, is free and open to the public.

McGee’s lecture will focus on the important ethical issues surrounding the use of stem cells in medical research. While stem cells are seen as having the capacity to be an important source of new medical discoveries, with possible links to a cure for everything from Parkinson’s disease to certain forms of Alzheimer’s, there are important moral issues about the use of fetal stem cells and the results of the bioengineering of humans.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Baylor University, where he was a 2001 outstanding young alumnus, McGee is editor-in-chief American Journal of Bioethics, senior series editor of Bioethics (MIT Press) and founding director of the bioethics.net web site. He also serves on the U. S. Food and Drug Administration’s Molecular and Clinical Genetic Devices Panel.

His books include Being Genomic, The New Immortality, Who Owns Life, Pragmatic Bioethics, The Human Cloning Debate and The Perfect Baby.

Dr. Norton, who died in 1995, joined the faculty in 1966 and helped establish the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program. He was the author of two major philosophy books, Personal Destinies and Democracy and Moral Development, in addition to almost 100 articles and essays. With his wife Mary, he edited Philosophies of Love, and a book entitled Imagination, Understanding and the Virtue of Liberality, was published posthumously. Among his honors was an honorary doctorate from Soka University in Japan.

The lecture is supported by the David Norton memorial Fund, the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, the Department of Philosophy and the Class of 1955 Ethics Endowment Fund.

For more information, call 831-2359.