Biolaw

Through frontal lessons each dedicated to a specific subject, the course provides the student, with the legal concepts related to the progress of scientific and technical knowledge in the field of biomedicine.

1) Knowledge and understanding.

At the end of the course, the student must be able to know and to use, even original and with a proper legal language, the legal concepts, institutions, and sources of law related to the progress of science and technology in biomedicine, with a specific focus on the beginning and the end of human life; the relationship of care; the transplants; the neurosciences; the human enhancement and genetic editing; the clinical trials; the marketing of medical devices; the vaccination prevention.

2) Applying knowledge and understanding.

At the end of the course, the student must be able to resolve legal questions, even innovative and hypothetical, concerning the legal personhood of the embryo; the criteria and methods for ascertaining legal death and for the organs' donation; the informed consent and the living will, including medical assistance in dying; the transplant, aesthetic and enhancing medicine, including genome editing; the assisted reproduction and abortion; the forensic neurosciences; the clinical trials; the marketing of medical devices; the vaccination.

3) Making judgements.

At the end of the course, through lectures and discussion of cases, the student must be able to elaborate and defend, with proper logical-legal arguments, an independent reading of the concepts, institutes, and sources of bio-law, with particular reference to the medically assisted procreation and abortion; the autonomy of the patient about medical treatments, including the end-of-life decisions and the protection of the vulnerable and older adult; the transplants; the forensic neurosciences; the human enhancement, including the genetic engineering; the clinical trials; the marketing of medical drugs and devices; the vaccination prevention.

4) Communication skills.

At the end of the course, through frontal lessons and discussions in the classroom with slides, the student must be able to present to a specialized and non-specialized audience, in a technical-legal language and with full knowledge, the concepts, institutions, and sources of biolaw with particular reference to the beginning and the end of life; the neurosciences, the transplants; the human enhancement and genetic editing; the clinical trials; the marketing of medical drugs and devices; the vaccination prevention.

5) Learning skills.

The course allows the student to autonomously continue studying the legal implications of scientific and technological progress in biomedicine by participating in the cultural, political, and social debate and eventually by deciding to prepare the M.A. Thesis also in view of the choice, after graduation, of master courses in the biolaw discipline, or the search for employment in areas where bio-legal knowledge is particularly required.