Studies of ethical challenges that can confront practicing scientists and engineers in the entrepreneurial stage of the overarching research-and-innovation process are virtually non-existent. This paper explores ethical challenges that arose at a specific entrepreneurial startup: Theranos, the defunct blood-testing company. The fundamental ethical responsibilities of scientists and engineers offer a framework useful for evaluating the conduct of practicing scientists and engineers from an ethical responsibility perspective. Questionable conduct by (...) Theranos’s former top managers has been widely discussed. However, the fact that a number of Theranos scientists and engineers responded to ethical challenges in several phases of the innovation/entrepreneurial stage with ethically responsible conduct has gone largely unrecognized. Ten mini cases involving these practitioners are discussed. Their deeds reflect different harm-prevention strategies. The Theranos case suggests several ethics-related takeaways for scientists and engineers who work or may work in technical startups. Familiarity with the FERSEs and knowledge of the ethical challenges, ethically responsible conduct, and harm-prevention strategies exhibited in the Theranos case provide valuable intellectual resources for startup scientists and engineers who aspire to be ethically responsible professionals. (shrink)

To what extent do nanotechnology researchers discern specific work-related ethical responsibilities that are incumbent upon them? A questionnaire was designed and administered to answer this question. Analysis of responses to 11 ethical responsibility statements (ERSs) by 213 researchers at the Stanford Nanofabrication Facility revealed widespread agreement about a number of work-related ethical responsibilities and substantial divergence in the views about several others. Explanations of this divergence are proposed. A new variable is defined that gauges the (...) respondent’s overall level of discernment of the ethical responsibilities referenced in the ERSs. The mean discernment level score for respondents who had taken a course that included discussion of ethical issues closely related to science, technology, or engineering was significantly higher than for those who had not. Further, among respondents who had taken such a course, the mean discernment level score for those who had taken an ethics course devoted to exploration of ethical issues closely related to science, technology, or engineering was significantly higher than for those who had taken a technical science or engineering course that typically pays only fleeting attention to such issues. Implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)