March 28, 2006

The first national Judges’ Medical School (JMS) was co-hosted by CCGS and the Supreme Court of North Carolina at UNC-Chapel Hill on March 8-11.  The JMS provides state and federal judges from across the country an opportunity to learn about human disease, clinical research, and technological advances in medicine.  This year’s JMS, attended by 73 judges, focused on cancer, including its biology, diagnosis, and treatment.  The main objectives were to illustrate recent and emerging perspectives with respect to the genetic basis of cancer, and to provide a venue for judicial inquiry regarding best practices in the administration of justice.  The JMS was organized by CCGS/Genetics faculty member Jim Evans, MD, PhD and his group in the Bryson Program in Human Genetics.  Dr. Evans also serves as Chief Science Advisor for ASTAR, the Advanced Science and Technology Adjudication Resource Center which identifies, recruits, and trains judges to acquire specialized scientific training so that they can better function in a court system that often has to grapple with cases involving complex scientific evidence and issues.  The four-day event featured presentations from clinicians and researchers at UNC, state and federal judges, as well as a hands-on genetics laboratory experience to help illustrate human genetic variation among the participants themselves. The JMS was co-sponsored by the Bryson Program in Human Genetics, Carolina Center for Genome Sciences, Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Maryland Court of Appeals, and the Supreme Court of Ohio.