Biogenetica e biopirateria: al cuore del problema

Van Rensselaer Potter is purportedly the inventor of the term “bioethics”, which is seen as the science that permits us to employ our knowledge in order to guarantee the survival of the human species on earth. Van Rensselaer Potter’s proposal presupposes a kind of mecchanistics and strong utilitarianism; elements, which render it problematic and incline it to admit without much ado abortion as a means of birth control.

This analysis moves to the last discoveries about molecular biology and to the Elena Gagliasso's studying about habitat outside the organism and habitat inside cells. It starts from the Lamarck theories about importance of the habitat to the dynamics of the organism. The changes in the environmental situation induce the organism to use different organ to preserve himself. The new situations change the needs of the organism and it changes behavior. The new behavior move to the offspring and the species change over time for progressive transformation without DNA involvement. In reality during the research we prove that the habitat signals influence the gene expression; the science that studies these interactions is the Epigenetic. The Epigenetic survey about the inherited modifications represents also an important connection between phenotype and genotype interested in mechanism of evolution. These theories retract the neo-Darwinism axioms about evolution reason. The final purpose is to introduce a new field of research : EVO-ECO-DEVO that is a link between ecology and molecular biology. La tematica che ci siamo prefissi di approfondire muove dalle riflessioni suscitate dalle recenti scoperte avvenute nel campo della biologia molecolare. In particolare nella prima parte dell' intervento ci occuperemo del lamarckismo accantonato già a partire dalla seconda metà del XIX sec. e ripreso oggi in considerazione grazie a delle scoperte che hanno dimostrato che un tratto acquisito può essere ereditato senza coinvolgere direttamente il DNA. Nella seconda parte invece entreremo più nello specifico

Conferenza in preparazione per invito a Porto Alegre, Brazil

Mefisto Rivista di medicina, filosofia, storia, 2018

BioLaw Journal/Rivista di BioDiritto, 2019

The paper starts from the assumption of recognising science as potential drving force of the evolution of biolaw. After having clarified the need for a functional connection between scientific and constitutional dimension, the propulsive function of science is analysed with regard to the effective protection of fundamental rights, the impact over the characteristics of the law-making process and constitutional justice.

S&F_scienzaefilosofia.it, 2017

Bioethics on trial. Remarks and critical Observations After the definitive consecration of Bioethics, both at the academic and at the public level some scholars, from the early years of the new century, have begun to move criticism into various aspects of the discipline. In the present paper, after a brief medicineintroduction of historical character (§ 2), I will present some of these criticisms (§ 3) by highlighting strengths and weaknesses (§ 4). In the final paragraph (§5), I maintain that bioethics, despite some critical elements, can still be an important discipline both to understand the transformations of our society induced by biomedical developments and to provide homo technologicus with useful tools to guide his own moral conduct.

Si presentano alcuni dei principi sui quali Peter Singer elabora le sue proposte in ambito bioetico per poi offrire una critica su tali principi e le loro conseguenze.