At colleges and universities across the United States, graduate students are enrolling in courses specifically dealing with proper research ethics.

After several high profile cases developed involving real or perceived scientific misconduct, the National Institute of Health mandated in 1990 that all graduate students whose research is federally funded must study responsible research conduct. Even before the federal mandate took place, however, universities recognized that the best way to prepare researchers for potential ethical dilemmas would be through education.

Such classes are a response to concerns that as graduate students become more and more directly involved with research work, they will face ethical questions while still in school, without having the maturity of a few years “on the job” to use as a frame of reference.

Virginia Commonwealth University began teaching an informal ethical research seminar series in 1986, which has developed into the formal required class currently being taught.

“Scientific research has become complicated on many fronts,” said Dr. Francis L. Macrina, Virginia Commonwealth’s research ethics professor. “There is an increasing number of documents and procedures to keep track of, and unspoken normative scientific behavior became policy with the formation of this class.”

University of Wisconsin does not have a general research ethics course. Instead, UW has ethics courses tailored for each of the NIH-funded training grants, which include the departments of genetics, molecular biology, neurosciences, oncology and biotechnology.

UW professors Paul Treichel and Timothy J. Donohue jointly teach Scientific Ethics to approximately two-dozen students in bacteriology and chemistry each semester.

Donohue feels that the course is not so much a formal lesson in ethical philosophies or theories, but rather an attempt to expose students to real life situations they are likely to face as researchers. He said it provides a vehicle for them to understand how to resolve ethical dilemmas.

Both Donohue and Treichel’s UW course and Macrina’s Virginia course heavily integrate case studies into the curriculum.

“The case study format is an effective way to get students to reason out ethical situations,” Donohue said.

Treichel, chemistry professor and chair of the UW Committee on Graduate Training in Research Ethics, said that some of the ethical issues researchers might face include conflicts of interest, interpretation of data, mentoring students, interpersonal relationships and controversial issues.

Virginia Commonwealth does not currently have a separate undergraduate research ethics course, but Macrina said he is working with the biology department to develop a similar undergraduate program to be implemented in the next year to year-and-a-half.

Donohue also said that the UW does not currently have an undergraduate-specific research ethics course. However, he said some professors have begun to integrate research ethics into their undergraduate courses.

All three professors agree that from a researcher’s standpoint, it is preferable to have scientists teaching research ethics rather than having professional ethicists doing the job.

“Someone without a scientific background won’t have an understanding of the researcher’s point of view,” Macrina said. “Scientists teaching ethics are role models in driving home the message of the class.”