Towards a biblical theology of genetic disease: practical Christian ethics in the metabolic clinic

Date:: Thursday 26 April 2018
Time:: 5.45pm - 7.15pm

Location: Billiard Room (D121), St Mary's University

Hosted by the Centre for Bioethics and Emerging Technologies (CBET).

The “problem of suffering” is universal, and any religious meta-narrative seeking real-world credibility must at least attempt to provide an explanation for it. Inherited or genetic disorders add further complexity to the concepts of the origin of illness and suffering. Current biomedical diagnostic technologies generate ethical and clinical dilemmas through the ability to undertake pre-implantation and ante-natal diagnosis. Furthermore, novel genome editing technologies are able to treat at the most fundamental level these genetic disorders, in some situations making permanent changes to the genetic material inherited from generation to generation.

This lecture, given from the perspective of the clinical arena of inherited metabolic disorders, will attempt to place these issues in an orthodox biblical framework, and consider how a Christian perspective can inform and shape decision-making at both the personal-clinical and wider policy levels.

About the speaker

Dr James Davison

Dr James Davison is Consultant in Paediatric Metabolic Medicine at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, London, where he has worked since 2012. He is a Fellow of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. His doctoral thesis (PhD, University of Birmingham) was on the development and application of non-invasive brain metabolite profiling using magnetic resonance spectroscopy.