The request to revise BINF 4191/5191

Date: December 9, 2015
To: College of Computing & Informatics
From: Office of Academic Affairs
Approved On: November 17, 2015
Approved by: Undergraduate Course and Curriculum Committee
, Approved by: Graduate Council
Implementation Date: Summer 2016


Note: Deletions are strikethroughs. Insertions are underlined.


Catalog Copy

BINF 4191 – Biotechnology Life Sciences and the Law


Credit Hours: (3)

At the intersection of biotechnology and the law, an intricate body of law is forming based on constitutional, case, regulatory and administrative law. This body of legal knowledge is interwoven with ethics, policy and public opinion. Because biotechnology impacts everything in our lives, the course will provide an overview of salient legal biotechnology topics, including but not limited to: intellectual property, innovation and approvals in agriculture, drug and diagnostic discovery, the use of human and animal subjects, criminal law and the courtroom, agriculture (from farm to fork), patient care, bioethics, and privacy. The body of law is quite complex and it is inundated with a deluge of acronyms. The course will provide a foundation to law and a resource to help students decipher laws and regulation when they are brought up in the workplace. Law and regulations permeate our daily lives, and nowhere is this truer than in areas of life sciences. This course explores what the law is, how our current laws developed, and factors currently affecting the evolution of the law. It provides a general overview of US law including constitutional law, criminal law, contract law, tort law, property law (especially intellectual property law), business law (especially legal aspects of forming a new company), and administrative law. It then focuses on specific aspects of the law affecting the life sciences such as ownership of tissues and organisms, regulation of drugs and medical devices, regulation of research in the life sciences, the history and regulation of medicine, the economics and various types of health care delivery, and food production.

Prerequisite(s): Junior or Senior standing in a scientific/technical course of study or if in a nonbiological/ technical or scientific program, special permission of instructor.

BINF 5191 – Biotechnology Life Sciences and the Law


Credit Hours: (3)

At the intersection of biotechnology and the law, an intricate body of law is forming based on constitutional, case, regulatory and administrative law. This body of legal knowledge is interwoven with ethics, policy and public opinion. Because biotechnology impacts everything in our lives, the course will provide an overview of salient legal biotechnology topics, including but not limited to: intellectual property, innovation and approvals in agriculture, drug and diagnostic discovery, the use of human and animal subjects, criminal law and the courtroom, agriculture (from farm to fork), patient care, bioethics, and privacy. The body of law is quite complex and it is inundated with a deluge of acronyms. The course will provide a foundation to law and a resource to help students decipher laws and regulation when they are brought up in the workplace. Law and regulations permeate our daily lives, and nowhere is this truer than in areas of life sciences. This course explores what the law is, how our current laws developed, and factors currently affecting the evolution of the law. It provides a general overview of US law including constitutional law, criminal law, contract law, tort law, property law (especially intellectual property law), business law (especially legal aspects of forming a new company), and administrative law. It then focuses on specific aspects of the law affecting the life sciences such as ownership of tissues and organisms, regulation of drugs and medical devices, regulation of research in the life sciences, the history and regulation of medicine, the economics and various types of health care delivery, and food production.

Prerequisite(s): Admission to a graduate program.