When Media Is Your Medium in a Highly Dynamic Industry, Alumni Are Making Their Mark

SPRING 2019 THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA LAW SCHOOL MAGAZINE When Media Is Your Medium In a Highly Dynamic Industry, Alumni Are Making Their Mark + NEW COLLABORATIONS Innocence Project of Minnesota relocates to Law School CLINIC SUCCESSES Three students argue, win 6th Circuit appeal LAW LIBRARY New exhibit honors Judge Diana Murphy ’74, other trailblazers LAURA COATES '05 CNN LEGAL ANALYST FACULTY FOCUS At the Intersection of Law and Medicine Professor Susan Wolf’s Cutting-Edge Work Connects the Dots Between Disciplines SUSAN WOLF HAS LONG BEEN a leading theorist of the physician- FASCINATED by medicine and the patient relationship. “I began to see biological sciences. She pored over how I could marry my love for the history of surgery and medical biomedicine with law and ethics,” biographies in elementary school she says. and studied behavioral evolution in After clerking for a federal judge college. Yet after graduating from in New York City, Wolf became a Princeton University, Wolf found litigator at a large law firm, where herself in a quandary about whether she collaborated with a partner who to pursue medicine or law. chaired the presidential commission “I was interested in bioethics long on bioethics during the Carter before it was a recognized subject,” administration. She then plunged she says. “And truth be told, I was full-time into bioethics at The better at talking than at lab work. Hastings Center, an interdisciplinary I loved argumentation.” institute addressing ethical issues in Today, Wolf holds professorships health care, science, and technology. in law and medicine. She also chairs “I was fortunate to spend eight years the groundbreaking Consortium at the epicenter of bioethics,” she says. Health & the Life Sciences, and on Law and Values in Health, then the University-wide Consortium Environment & the Life Sciences, At the Intersection of on Law and Values in Health, which links 19 member centers at Science and Law Environment & the Life Sciences. the University to conduct research In 1993, the University of “The Consortium deals with and advance dialogue on pressing Minnesota recruited Wolf to forge issues at the intersection of law, issues at the intersection a crucial connection between law, ethics, policy, and the biomedical of science and society. biomedicine, and ethics at a time and life sciences, such as how to when concerns about end-of-life oversee emerging technologies,” Propelled on a Path care, health care reform, and genetics says Wolf. “These are ‘perfect storm’ Wolf’s path after college led her to were exploding. She joined the problems that obey no disciplinary work at Southbury Training School, faculty, based in the Law School borders and require interdisciplinary a state-run facility in Connecticut but with half of her time allocated collaboration.” for people with disabilities. That to the Center for Bioethics in the The Consortium’s pioneering experience propelled her to think Academic Health Center. work has attracted funding from the deeply about the ethics of care and Wolf quickly began to build National Institutes of Health, the patients’ rights. A few years later, at programs—first, the University’s National Science Foundation, and Yale Law School, she met Jay Katz, Joint Degree Program in Law, others. A recent series of NIH-funded 32 MINNESOTA LAW SPRING 2019 “ I was interested in bioethics long before it was a recognized subject. And truth be told, I was better at talking than at lab work. I loved argumentation.” —Prof. Susan Wolf projects analyzed whether to offer reactions to medications—can research participants individual-spe- advance health throughout cific genomic findings of potential Minnesota. Professor Susan M. importance to their health. “We asked On the national level, Wolf is an Wolf is the McKnight questions that were brand-new,” says elected member of the National Presidential Professor Wolf. “What should researchers do Academy of Medicine, where she of Law, Medicine & when they find something unex- serves on a committee that addresses Public Policy; Faegre pected, beyond what they are study- issues in public policy. She also sits Baker Daniels Professor ing? Our work built a foundation for on the advisory panel for an NIH of Law; and Professor what is now a burgeoning field of program on genomic analysis in large of Medicine. She also research and innovation.” population studies. serves as chair of the With support from the University “The challenges posed now by Consortium on Law of Minnesota provost’s Grand biomedicine and the life sciences are and Values in Health, Challenges program, the Consortium huge,” says Wolf. “These are the Environment & the Life now is partnering across the problems our collaborative teams are Sciences. University and state to investigate trying to solve.”❘❘❘❘ how pharmacogenomics—the study of genetic factors affecting patient By Kathy Graves, a writer based in Minneapolis. SPRING 2019 MINNESOTA LAW 33.

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