Cumberland Law School's Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics

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Cumberland School of Law's Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics is a research center located in Birmingham, Alabama at Samford University. It was founded in December of 2003. Professor David M. Smolin serves as director for the Center. He is a nationally recognized expert in Bioethics/Biotechnology Issues, International Children's Issues, Reproductive Constitutional Issues and Religion and Law.

This center is the only one of its kind in the United States and takes its approach to current bioethical issues through "rigorous analysis, reliable information, and [from] multiple perspectives." [link]

The Center maintains an office and library at the law school. Two fellows, and several assistant researchers serve for one year terms.

Contents

1 Purpose
2 Prior Symposium Topics
3 Biofuels Conference, 2006
4 Bioethics Methodology Conference, 2005
5 Genetically Modified Foods Conference, 2004
6 Current and Prior Fellows
7 Cumberland Law School's relevant courses
8 Further Information

Purpose

Research focuses on current bioethical dilemmas and specific issues regarding the Center's Annual Symposium (see listing below), which is typically co-sponsored by the Cumberland Law Review. For the past several years an issue of the Cumberland Law Review has been devoted to the Symposium topic.

Prior Symposium Topics

Feb., 2007 - Anticipated topic on Health Care

Feb., 2006 - Biofuels and the New Energy Economy

Mar., 2005 - Bioethics Methodology - Does the Field of Bioethics Provide Answers or Expertise? - An Exploration of Secular and Religious Methodologies

Mar., 2004 - Genetically Modified Foods - National and Global Implications of Genetically Modified Organisms: Law, Ethics & Science.

Biofuels Conference, 2006

This Conference was free and open to the public and was hosted on Monday, February 10, 2006 at Cumberland School of Law. It included six panels and two question and answer sessions. The panels were:

The Traditional Energy Economy,

Energy Policy: A Human Rights Perspective,

Global Climate Change and Energy Policy,

National Security, Cost and Environmental Analysis of Bioenergy,

A Strategy for Developling Stationary Biodiesel Electric Generation, Challenges and

Opportunities in Developing Bioenergy Alternatives.

The participants were John Christy of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Michael Dworkin, director of Vermont Law School's Institute for Energy and the Enviroment, Karl R. Rabago, president of Texas Renewable Energy Insdustries Association, David M. Smolin, director of Cumberland Law School's Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics, Michael J. Smolin, PE, prinicpal of EXL Group, LLC, and Jacqueline Lang Weaver, professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

The conference analyzed the role of biofuels as a supplement to the petroluem-based economy in both the utility and transportation sectors.

Bioethics Methodology Conference, 2005

This Conference was free and open to the public and was hosted on Monday, March 14, 2005 at Cumberland School of Law. It included three panels:

Alternative Reproduction Technologies,

Death and Dying, and

Children as Research Subjects - Grimes v. Kennedy Krieger Institute.

The participants were Professors Janet Dolgin of Hofstra. L. Jack Nelson III of Cumberland School of Law, Larry I. Palmer the chair of urban health policy at the University of Louisville, Lois Shepherd of Florida State University College of Law and David M. Smolin of Cumberland School of Law.

The conference analyzed how secular and religious methodoligies answered the previously mentioned bioethical dilemmas. The impetus for the Conference sprang from three common criticisms of the field of Bioethics that "basic prinicples of bioethics are vague and indeterminate, and provide no real answers to bioethics dilemmas...there is no real expertise in the field but merely the subjective answers of individual bioethicists and...that the mainstream bioethics field has some of the "wrong" answers to basic bioethical dilemmas..."

The Conference was presented by Cumberland School of Law's Center for Bioetechnology, Law and Ethics, the Cumberland Law Review and Cumberland School of Law.

Genetically Modified Foods Conference, 2004

This Conference was free and open to the public and was hosted on Monday, March 31, 2004 at the Bradley Lecure Center, Children's Harbor Building of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

It included six panels:

Four Worldviews on Genetically Modified Food, or Greenpeace versus Monsanto,

Genomics-Guided Agricultural Biotechnology: Seeking a Less Politically Volatile Approach to GMO Development,

GMOs as an International Trade Issue: Using the World Trade Organization to Resolve an International Public Policy Conflict,

Can GMOs Help Developing Countries in their Quest for Food Security?,

The Promise and Peril of GM Agriculture in the Developing World: What Will Become of Traditional Agriculture Knowledge?, and

Andhra Pradesh, India, as a Case Study in Perspectives on GMOs.

The participants were Gregory Pence, Ph.D. of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, David E. Adelman, J.D., Ph.d. of the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, Marsha Echols, J.D., LL.M., J.S.D., of Howard University School of Law, Charles R. McManis, J.D., of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, C.S. Prakash, Ph.D., of the Tuskegee University, David M. Smolin, J.D, of Cumberland School of Law, and Elizabeth Bowles, J.D. candidate, of Cumberland School of Law.

The Conference was presented by Cumberland Law School's Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics, the Cumberland Law Review and the Center for Ethics & Values in the Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Current and Prior Fellows

Holly Bennet (Class of '05)

Brian R. Mooney (Class of '06)

Jakarra Jones (Class of '07)

Cumberland Law School's relevant courses

Administrative Law

Antitrust

Bioethics and Law

Damages

Environmental Law

Equitable Remedies

Health Care Delivery Systems

Intellectual Property

International Environmental Law

International Intellectual Property System

Internet Law

Land Use Planning

Medical Liability

Patent Law

Products Liability

Sea, Ocean, and Coastal Law

Toxic Torts

Trademark and Unfair Competition

In addition, various advanced seminars are offered depending on facutly/student interest.

Further Information

[Website for Cumberland School of Law]

Cumberland School of Law

Cumberland Law Review

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