''The teacher's role is not to fill the vessel but to create the thirst.'' Dr. Eugenia del Pino Veintimilla embodies this age-old wisdom. She shares her experiences in approaching the complex topic of bioethics with university students and her methods for teaching them not what to think but how to think.

For Dr. Karimat El-Sayed bioethics ''concerns the morals of dealing with all living creatures.'' Based on the religious concepts of the Koran and the laws of nature, Dr. El-Sayed outlines her ideas on the ethical and unethical uses of the latest advances in biotechnology that, while opening doors to enormous progress in human welfare, also leave us vulnerable to disaster.

Women constitute a disproportionate share of the poor and the illiterate in developing countries, particularly in Africa. Dr. Adeyinka Falusi reports that African women are especially in danger of being victimized by unethical medical researchers and that, in the male-dominated societies of Africa, they have very little control over their personal healthcare.

Six young women scientists, recipients of L'OREAL For Women in Science National Fellowships with the support of National Commissions for UNESCO and UNESCO-L'OREAL For Women in Science International Fellowships, traveled to in Paris recently for the AFFSET International Conference on Environmental Epidemiology and Exposure. Busy schedules ensured the conversation would be brief, but these bright young women were able to steal a few moments to come together and express their ideas on bioethics. a conversation with Rasana Wongratanacheewin (Medicine/Thailand), Cindy Quezada (Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics/USA), Ghinwa Naja (Physical Chemistry and Biotechnology/ Lebanon), Cansin Sackesen (Medicine/Turkey), Glenys Webster (Occupational and Environmental Hygiene/Canada) and Valentina Lodde (Biotechnology/Italy)

In a world where both science and business cross borders at lightning speed, there is an ever greater need for an international bioethics code. Caroline Munier, consultant to UNESCO's Division of Ethics of Science and Technology, reports on her organization's efforts to establish universal guidelines to uphold ''human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms'' around the world.

Renowned legal scholar and ethicist on the faculty of Princeton University and a member of the President's Council on Bioethics, Dr. Robert George is a controversial figure in the United States. His positions on issues such abortion, stem cell research and cloning have aroused a great deal of heated debate. But even his fiercest opponents concede that he is a brilliant man whose learned opinions cannot be disregarded. Here Dr. George addresses the issue of the onset of human life. Many will not agree with the article's implications, but there is no doubt that it makes for stimulating reading. This article originally appeared in Perspectives in Biology and Medicine published by The Johns Hopkins University Press and is reprinted here with the author's kind permission.