[MUSIC] Hi, I'm Debra Matthews and I'll be teaching this course. I'm an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and I'm a human geneticist by training. Although my research now focuses on policy and ethics issues related to emerging biotechnology. I originally developed this course in an attempt to fill a gap in available ethics training for basic scientists, and many basic scientists never touched a human subject, never touched human tissue, and so don't have that as a sort of an in to all of the ethics training and opportunities for thinking about ethics issues around human subjects research. But there are lots of issues in basic science and I wanted to provide and opportunity for those scientists to think about and consider and puzzle over all of those ethical issues that are raised by other areas of science. Of course, people with other backgrounds are very very welcome to join the course as well and I hope that you will find something care of used to. So this course begins with a bit of background in context for the emergence of synthetic biology out of prior research and recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s. From there, we flash forward to an issue of very pressing and current concern, in gain of function research, and in particular dual use research of concern. In week three, we take on biofuels. Which is really interesting area where synthetic biology is being applied in particular because of the role of the commercial sector and that area of research. In week four, we'll discuss applications of synthetic biology to human health. And there you will a get a taste of those the decades of discussions and debates surrounding human subject research. Then finally, we'll talk probably about governance and public engagement in discussions and debates and policy decisions around often Morley contentious areas of bio-technology. This course is not exhaustive. Synthetic biology is an incredibly diverse field with an incredibly diverse subset of applications and I won't be able to cover everything. For example, we won't talk that much about DIY bio and DIY bio labs Or GMOs which could be a couple of courses in of themselves. We also want to talk about the application of synthetic biology in bio remediation food safety, the development of food sources etc. For more details on the course structure and assessments and grading, please review the syllabus. And I do hope you find this course interesting and engaging and, ultimately, valuable. [MUSIC]