After several weeks of secrecy surrounding the location and content of James M. Wilson's preceptorial on human gene therapy, the 15 students registered for the non-credit class were escorted last night from a meeting place in Williams Hall to a previously undisclosed location in the Wistar Institute on 36th Street.
After consulting with Wilson, the preceptorial committee took several steps over the past few weeks to prevent The Daily Pennsylvanian from obtaining information about the class. In addition to refusing the DP admission to the class -- and even the Wistar building -- preceptorial board member Aaron Short requested that students not speak to reporters afterward.
Wilson, once a shining star in the breakthrough field of gene therapy, garnered national media attention and criticism following the 1999 death of Jesse Gelsinger, an 18-year-old patient who died in study headed by Wilson.
Speaking on the topic in which the Food and Drug Administration has since questioned his ability to conduct research, Wilson last night instructed students on the tenets of human gene therapy.
Several students said before the class that they were hoping Wilson would discuss the Gelsinger case, but were nonetheless pleased with his scientific discussion and his promise that his now infamous clinical study would be addressed in their final meeting.
"I think he did a really good job," College sophomore Tim Pirolli said. "He made it feasible for undergraduates. He was concise and explained anything along the way that we didn't understand. It was kind of a lecture and kind of an interface."
Wilson did not return repeated phone calls and e-mails yesterday and declined to comment as he left the class last night.
But Rebecca Harmon, spokeswoman for the Penn Health System, said in an e-mail statement that Wilson will now be willing to discuss the content and goals of the preceptorial in the future.
Additionally, she said that Wilson "hopes to create a positive learning environment in which he and the students engage in an open, lively forum in which differing points of view are freely shared and discussed."
While Wilson appears to be opening up slightly to his new class, the circumstances surrounding his preceptorial and the request of students not to speak with the media have raised eyebrows on campus. Experts say competing interests are at play.
John Lantos, associate director of MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago, said he thought both the DP and Wilson were justified.
"It seems like there are two conflicting agendas -- one is to teach the class, and having reporters interfering would be problematic, the other is an open exchange of ideas and dialogue," he said. "I guess I agree with both. I think [reporters] should be able to try to figure out what is going on and he should be able to teach a class."
Students said they will be going to a lab in the next session for a demonstration of how work there is performed.
"The class was good, it was very interesting and he said he was going to talk about the Jesse Gelsinger incident when we meet for the last time," said one student who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I'm looking forward to that."
Students agreed that Wilson was very intelligent and knew a great deal about his field.
"He's very nice and... he's very knowledgeable," the anonymous student said.
The Columbia School of Journalism experienced a similar conflict between reporters and a professor in May, when former Vice President Al Gore requested that the class he was set to teach be off the record.
David Klatell, associate dean at the school, said he disagreed with the decision to try blocking Wilson's students from commenting to the media after class.
"I think it's [not] valuable and that's one reason that it's a mistake, because unless they're willing to put in some system of punishment for breaking the off-the-record request it's meaningless."
However, Klatell added that he does not believe reporters belong in classrooms.
"My own view is that classes are meetings between professors and students are not public, that's why people pay tuition," he said. "As far as people sitting in and covering classes, it is not the norm... and this is because we want the interchange among faculty and students as unfettered as possible."
Additionally, he said that having students express their views to the press would serve both the needs of the class and the public.
"You serve both interests -- you get the information out without disrupting the class," Klatell said.
According to Brenda Fraser, the University's associate general counsel, official Penn policy is that "If it's a course, no one is entitled to be there except the students enrolled in it without the professor's permission."
Since Gelsinger's death in 1999, Wilson has come under heavy scrutiny.
The FDA halted all human gene therapy experimentation at the University in January 2000 and the University announced the following May that the Institute for Human Gene Therapy, which Wilson heads, would no longer conduct clinical trials as recommended by an external review committee that had completed its work earlier that month.
A civil lawsuit filed by the Gelsinger family against Wilson, Penn and several other scientists and institutions was settled last November for an undisclosed sum.
The FDA is currently deciding whether Wilson should be "disqualified as a clinical investigator" based on charges that he "failed to adequately protect the safety and welfare of subjects" and that he "submitted misleading and inaccurate statements" to both Penn's internal review board and federal regulators overseeing the trial. The agency also alleges that Gelsinger was enrolled in the study despite medical test results indicating his ineligibility.
