About Us: Update on the Consortium

Update on the Consortium on Law and Values

In 2008-09 the Consortium and Joint Degree celebrated our 10th Anniversary. We are gratified by what we have achieved in our 10th Anniversary year:

• We completed the third year of work on our 4-year project funded by a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant, "NIRT: Evaluating Oversight Models for Active Nanostructures and Nanosystems: Learning from Past Technologies in Societal Context" resulting in many publications including a forthcoming symposium in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in December 2009;
• Thanks to generous funding from The Robina Fund for Conferences on Law, Public Policy & Society, the Consortium’s 10th Anniversary Conference on "What’s Next in Law, Health & the Life Sciences? Debating Openness, Access & Accountability" was a huge success with prominent national speakers and was the inaugural Robina Conference;
• Through our Request for Proposals (RFP) process, the Consortium competitively awarded 1 faculty grant, 6 student grants, and 1 grant to Consortium members and Joint Degree Program partner programs for a total of $71,729 in intramural funding for 2008-09;
• The Consortium and Joint Degree Program sponsored 7 events in 2008-09:
  • the Lecture Series on Law, Health & the Life Sciences focused on "Synthetic Biology: The Science, Ethics & Law of Creating New Life" with:
    • Prof. Robert Friedman, PhD, (J. Craig Venter Institute),
    • Prof. Arti Rai, JD (Duke University Law School), and
    • Prof. Drew Endy, PhD (Stanford University);
  • the Joint Degree Program continued the Deinard Memorial Lecture Series on Law & Medicine, co-sponsored with the Center for Bioethics, and generously supported by the Deinard family in honor of Amos and Benedict Deinard, featuring Prof. M. Gregg Bloche, JD, MD (Georgetown University) speaking on "The Emergent Logic of Health Reform";
  • our 10th Anniversary Conference focused on "What’s Next in Law, Health & the Life Sciences? Debating Openness, Access & Accountability," supported in part by The Robina Fund for Conferences on Law, Public Policy & Society — selected articles from this conference will appear in volume 11 of MJLST; and
  • Visiting Consortium Prof. David H. Faigman, JD (Hastings College of the Law) spoke on "Science in the Supreme Court: Hypotheses & Hypocrisy in Constitutional Decision Making"; and
• The Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology (MJLST) published volume 10 in 2008-09 and was pleased to offer advance online publication of an article by Zach W. Hall (formerly of CIRM) on "Stem Cell Research in California: The Intersection of Science, Politics, Culture, and Law." MJLST continues to be ranked as one of the top two journals for submissions in the Environmental Law category through ExpressO the online submission service of the Berkeley Electronic Press. MJLST also continued to offer open access to its articles, publishing articles online simultaneously with our print publication.

 

... and we look forward to new accomplishments.