The volatile debate over research with human embryonic stem cells and the politics and science that surrounds it will be discussed by UCSD and Salk Institute researchers at a free lecture for the public Oct. 19 on the UCSD campus in La Jolla.

Titled Stem Cell Research: Where Science Meets Politics and Ethics, the lecture is scheduled for 7-9 p.m. Friday, Oct. 19 in the UCSD Price Center Theater, located at the end of Myers Drive in the UCSD administrative complex. It is presented as part of UCSDs Annual Disability Awareness Program. For more information about the lecture, call 858-534-8010.

Topics will include human reproductive and therapeutic cloning, basic terminology used by scientists to describe the processes involved in stem cell research, descriptions of human and mouse embryonic stem cells, cell transplantation therapy for diabetes, and the legal, political and ethical issues surrounding the use of human embryonic stem cells, including the recent decision by President George W. Bush.

Speakers include Theodore Friedmann, M.D., director, UCSD Program in Human Gene Therapy, Muriel Jeannette Whitehill Chair in Biomedical Ethics, and professor of pediatrics; Fred H. Gage, Ph.D., professor, Laboratory of Genetics, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and UCSD professor of neurosciences; Lawrence Goldstein, Ph.D., UCSD professor of cellular and molecular medicine; and Fred Levine, M.D., Ph.D., a medical genetics specialist and UCSD associate professor of pediatrics. The panel moderator is Pamela L. Mellon, Ph.D., director, UCSD Center for the Study of Reproductive Biology and Disease, and professor, reproductive medicine and neurosciences.