The MIT Case Studies in Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing (SERC) aims to advance new efforts within and beyond MIT’s Stephen A. Schwarzman College of Computing. The specially commissioned and peer-reviewed cases are brief and intended to be effective for undergraduate instruction across a range of classes and fields of study. The series editors expect the cases will also be of interest for computing professionals, policy specialists, and general readers. All cases will be made freely available via open-access publishing, with author retained copyright, through Creative Commons licensing.
The Series Editors interpret “social and ethical responsibilities of computing” broadly. Some cases focus closely on particular technologies, others on trends across technological platforms. Still others examine social, historical, philosophical, legal, and cultural facets that are essential for thinking critically about present-day efforts in computing and data sciences.

The goal of this class is to prove that category theory is a powerful language for understanding and formalizing common scientific models. The power of the language will be tested by its ability to penetrate into taken-for-granted ideas, either by exposing existing weaknesses or flaws in our understanding, or by highlighting hidden commonalities across scientific fields.

This course examines the causes of war, with a focus on practical measures to prevent and control war. Topics include causes and consequences of misperception by nations; military strategy and policy as cause of war; religion and war; U.S. foreign policy as a cause of war and peace; and the likelihood and possible nature of great wars in the future.
The historical cases covered include World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Seven Years’ War, the Arab-Israel conflict, other recent Mideast wars, and the Peloponnesian War.

The goal of this course is to teach both the fundamentals of nuclear cell biology as well as the methodological and experimental approaches upon which they are based. Lectures and class discussions will cover the background and fundamental findings in a particular area of nuclear cell biology. The assigned readings will provide concrete examples of the experimental approaches and logic used to establish these findings. Some examples of topics include genome and systems biology, transcription, and gene expression.

Mechanical forces play a decisive role during development of tissues and organs, during remodeling following injury as well as in normal function. A stress field influences cell function primarily through deformation of the extracellular matrix to which cells are attached. Deformed cells express different biosynthetic activity relative to undeformed cells. The unit cell process paradigm combined with topics in connective tissue mechanics form the basis for discussions of several topics from cell biology, physiology, and medicine.

This course explores the major areas of cellular and molecular neurobiology, including excitable cells and membranes, ion channels and receptors, synaptic transmission, cell-type determination, axon guidance, neuronal cell biology, neurotrophin signaling and cell survival, synapse formation and neural plasticity. Material includes lectures and exams, and involves presentation and discussion of primary literature. It focuses on major concepts and recent advances in experimental neuroscience.

In this course we will explore how altered metabolism drives cancer progression. Students will learn (1) how to read, discuss, and critically evaluate scientific findings in the primary research literature, (2) how scientists experimentally approach fundamental issues in biology and medicine, (3) how recent findings have challenged the traditional “textbook” understanding of metabolism and given us new insight into cancer, and (4) how a local pharmaceutical company is developing therapeutics to target cancer metabolism in an effort to revolutionize cancer therapy.

This course serves as an introduction to the structure and function of the nervous system. Emphasis is placed on the cellular properties of neurons and other excitable cells. Topics covered include the structure and biophysical properties of excitable cells, synaptic transmission, neurochemistry, neurodevelopment, and the integration of information in simple systems and the visual system.

This course includes:

Surveying the molecular and cellular mechanisms of neuronal communication.
Coversion channels in excitable membrane, synaptic transmission, and synaptic plasticity.
Correlation of the properties of ion channels and synaptic transmission with their physiological function such as learning and memory.
Discussion of the organizational principles for the formation of functional neural networks at synaptic and cellular levels.

This course reviews the processing and structure of cellular materials as they are created from polymers, metals, ceramics, glasses, and composites, develops models for the mechanical behavior of cellular solids, and shows how the unique properties of honeycombs and foams are exploited in applications such as lightweight structural panels, energy absorption devices and thermal insulation. The applications of cellular solids in medicine include increased fracture risk due to trabecular bone loss in patients with osteoporosis, the development of metal foam coatings for orthopaedic implants, and designing porous scaffolds for tissue engineering that mimic the extracellular matrix. Modelling of cellular materials applied to natural materials and biomimicking is explored. Students taking the graduate version of the class are required to complete additional assignments.

Life as an emergent property of networks of chemical reactions involving proteins and nucleic acids. Mathematical theories of metabolism, gene regulation, signal transduction, chemotaxis, excitability, motility, mitosis, development, and immunity. Applications to directed molecular evolution, DNA computing, and metabolic and genetic engineering.

This course covers cells and tissues of the immune system, lymphocyte development, the structure and function of antigen receptors, the cell biology of antigen processing and presentation, including molecular structure and assembly of MHC molecules, the biology of cytokines, leukocyte-endothelial interactions, and the pathogenesis of immunologically mediated diseases. The course is structured as a series of lectures and tutorials in which clinical cases are discussed with faculty tutors.
Lecturers
Frederick W. Alt, Marcus Altfeld, Paul Anderson, Jon C. Aster, Hugh Auchincloss, Steven P. Balk, Samuel M. Behar, Richard S. Blumberg, Francisco Bonilla, Bobby Cherayil, Benjamin Davis, David Hafler, Nir Harcohen, Bruce Horwitz, David M. Lee, Andrew Lichtman, Diane Mathis, Richard Mitchell, Hidde Ploegh, Emmett Schmidt, Arlene Sharpe, Megan Sykes, Shannon Turley, Dale T. Umetsu, Ulrich von Andrian, Bruce Walker, Kai Wucherpfennig, Ramnik Xavier, Sarah Henrickson

This is a course for those who are interested in the challenge posed by massive and persistent world poverty, and are hopeful that economists might have something useful to say about this challenge. The questions we will take up include: Is extreme poverty a thing of the past? What is economic life like when living under a dollar per day? Why do some countries grow fast and others fall further behind? Does growth help the poor? Are famines unavoidable? How can we end child labor—or should we? How do we make schools work for poor citizens? How do we deal with the disease burden? Is micro finance invaluable or overrated? Without property rights, is life destined to be “nasty, brutish and short”? Has globalization been good to the poor? Should we leave economic development to the market? Should we leave economic development to non-governmental organizations (NGOs)? Does foreign aid help or hinder? Where is the best place to intervene?
MITx Online Version
This course is part of the Micromaster’s Program in Data, Economics, and Design of Policy through MITx Online. The course is entirely free to audit, though learners have the option to pay a fee, which is based on the learner’s ability to pay, to take the proctored exam, and earn a course certificate. To access the course, create an MITx Online account and enroll in the course 14.73x The Challenges of Global Poverty.

The Chandra Astrophysics Institute (CAI), a Chandra X-ray Observatory–sponsored program run by the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, was intended for students from the Boston area from a wide range of academic backgrounds with a limited opportunity to directly experience authentic science. 
The CAI was a year-long program to train for and take part in authentic astronomy projects. Participants built employable research, technology, and collaboration skills and the background knowledge necessary to understand how research science is done. Investigations of different astronomical systems were undertaken during a five-week summer session at MIT. Participants, mentored by MIT researchers and educators, then applied these skills to undertake research projects in x-ray astronomy based on observations made with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

In this course, students will develop their abilities to expose ways that scientific knowledge has been shaped in contexts that are gendered, racialized, economically exploitative, and hetero-normative. This happens through a sequence of four projects that concern:

Interpretation of the cultural dimension of sciences
Climate change futures
Genomic citizenry
Students’ plans for ongoing practice

The course uses a Project-Based Learning format that allows students to shape their own directions of inquiry in each project, development of skills, and collegial support. Students’ learning will be guided by individualized bibliographies co-constructed with the instructors, the inquiries of the other students, and a set of tools and processes for literary analysis, inquiry, reflection, and support. 
Acknowledgement
Professor Peter Taylor spent several years crafting the unique structure of the course, which is crucial to the way it was taught. 
The Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality
This course was taught as part of the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) at MIT. The GCWS brings together scholars and teachers at nine degree-granting institutions in the Boston area who are devoted to graduate teaching and research in Women’s Studies and to advance interdisciplinary Women’s Studies scholarship.

Each year, groups of MIT freshmen are introduced to MIT’s laboratory environment through a four-week intensive January course called 5.301 Chemistry Lab Techniques. The stakes are high—students who pass the class are guaranteed a job in an MIT research lab. 
OpenCourseWare documented the experience of 14 students who took this course in January 2012. Follow their journey over 11 episodes and watch as they struggled with, but ultimately mastered, the techniques needed to be successful in an MIT chemistry lab.
WARNING NOTICE
The experiments described in these materials are potentially hazardous. Among other things, the experiments should include the following safety measures: a high level of safety training, special facilities and equipment, the use of proper personal protective equipment, and supervision by appropriate individuals. You bear the sole responsibility, liability, and risk for the implementation of such safety procedures and measures. MIT and Dow shall have no responsibility, liability, or risk for the content or implementation of any of the material presented. Legal Notice

This course aims to connect the principles, concepts, and laws/postulates of classical and statistical thermodynamics to applications that require quantitative knowledge of thermodynamic properties from a macroscopic to a molecular level. It covers their basic postulates of classical thermodynamics and their application to transient open and closed systems, criteria of stability and equilibria, as well as constitutive property models of pure materials and mixtures emphasizing molecular-level effects using the formalism of statistical mechanics. Phase and chemical equilibria of multicomponent systems are covered. Applications are emphasized through extensive problem work relating to practical cases.

This is an undergraduate introductory laboratory subject in ocean chemistry and measurement. There are three main elements to the course: oceanic chemical sampling and analysis, instrumentation development for the ocean environment, and the larger field of ocean science.
This course is offered through The MIT/WHOI Joint Program. The MIT/WHOI Joint Program is one of the premier marine science graduate programs in the world. It draws on the complementary strengths and approaches of two great institutions: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

This course applies the concepts of reaction rate, stoichiometry and equilibrium to the analysis of chemical and biological reacting systems, derivation of rate expressions from reaction mechanisms and equilibrium or steady state assumptions, design of chemical and biochemical reactors via synthesis of chemical kinetics, transport phenomena, and mass and energy balances. Topics covered include: chemical/biochemical pathways; enzymatic, pathway, and cell growth kinetics; batch, plug flow and well-stirred reactors for chemical reactions and cultivations of microorganisms and mammalian cells; heterogeneous and enzymatic catalysis; heat and mass transport in reactors, including diffusion to and within catalyst particles and cells or immobilized enzymes.

This core class in the Environmental M.Eng. program is for all students interested in the behavior of chemicals in the environment. The emphasis is on man-made chemicals; their movement through water, air, and soil; and their eventual fate. Physical transport, as well as chemical and biological sources and sinks, are discussed. Linkages to health effects, sources and control, and policy aspects are discussed and debated.