Collaborative Meeting Feelings

Just before we left for spring break, our group was able to meet to discuss possible ideas for our collaborative projects.We were able to finally narrow our scope of topics to one central idea focused around biomedical engineering (BME). The BME track was convenient for us since three of our four members are pursuing majors in either chemical biology or biomedical engineering. Also, when we broke down what possible topics we could cover in each selection of fields of discussion, we were much more comfortable with research in the BME field than any of the other fields. We came up with possible research topics, the two primary topics being gene manipulation and gene engineering, i.e. reconfiguring the human genome to explicitly express or suppress specific genes in humans or organs to acquire specific results. This topic also brings into the argument a possible religious aspect, with the question being should humans be allowed to play God in the laboratory? The second suggested topic would be in the area of stem cell research and how the advances in technology allow for a greater understanding of how these cells work and how they are beneficial to human life. As of right now, all that's left is to finalize our topic and get started on the research. Personally, I'm leaning towards the stem cell research since I have looked up information in the past as well as the ethical debates surrounding it.