A group of U-M students will host the 7th Undergraduate Conference on Bioethics March 19-20. It will bring together visual and performing arts and feature discussions about the thorny social questions of the new age of biology.

Students Exploring the Life Sciences and Society (SELSS)—with support from the Life Sciences, Values and Society Program, LSA and the Life Sciences Institute (LSI)—is organizing the conference. Many of the activities will be held in the new Palmer Commons building, adjacent to LSI on Washtenaw Ave.; others will be held in the Michigan League.

Human genome project leader Dr. Francis Collins, who is known not only for his scientific discovery, but for his concern for social and ethical questions, as well, will deliver the conference’s keynote address March 19.

“Bioethics is a new field,” says Danielle Bochneak, president of SELSS. “We are attempting to strike a balance between the compelling scare stories about biotechnology that you find in popular media and a more realistic picture of what biological science has to offer.”

One of the highlights of the conference will be a March 19 workshop performance in the League ballroom by Andy Kirshner, U-M assistant professor of music and art & design, of an unfinished work—”Museum of Life and Death (M.O.L.D.).”

Details are available at http://www.umich.edu/~selss/conference.htm.