SCHEDULE FOR MHC 360 IN SPRING OF 2019
Instructor: Harold Varmus MD   (Varmus@med.cornell.edu)

Wednesdays, 5 to 7:40 pm, at 35 West 67th Street

Note: this syllabus will be supplemented with more details—

reading lists and specific instructions for each class—during the course.

Information, as well as student and instructor blog entries, will be posted on the course website: https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/varmusspring2017/

Date Session Topic/Activity Comments on content
Jan. 30    1 Course introduction Getting to know each other; review of MHC360; discussion of HV’s memoir
Feb. 6    2 Becoming a scientist Books and ideas that have motivated people to pursue science
Feb. 13    3 Guest: Jon Weiner,
Columbia Journalism		 (Topic to be determined)
Feb. 20    4 Purpose of science Why science is important and why governments and others support it
Feb. 27   5 Guest: Steve Hall,
NYU Journalism		 (Topic to be determined)
Mar. 6   6 Credibility of science What are the failures and uncertainties of science and their consequences?
Mar. 13  7 Equity in science Issues of gender and ethnicity in the practice and application of science
Mar. 20  8 Science for the public How science is represented in the arts
Mar. 27  9 Disseminating science How scientists communicate and publish and how their work is evaluated
Apr. 3 10 Ownership of science Intellectual property and credit for discoveries in public and private sectors
Apr. 10 11 Scientific communities How science is funded; changes in the demography of science
Apr. 17 12 Recent controversies Embryo and stem cell research; vaccines; gene editing, genomics…
Apr. 24 Spring Break Spring Break  Spring Break
May 1 13 Student presentations
May 8 14 Student presentations and course party
May XX Term papers due

Course assistants:
Kevin Ambrose, MHC  <kevind.ambrose@gmail.com>

Dawn Thomas, Weill-Cornell Medicine <dat2023@med.cornell.edu>