Effy Vayena | |
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| Born | 1972 [1] |
| Alma mater | University of Minnesota |
| Scientific career | |
| Thesis | Cancer detectors : an international history of the pap test and cervical cancer screening, 1928-1970 (1999) |
| Doctoral advisor | John Eyler |
Eftychia ("Effy") Vayena (born 1972) is a Greek and Swiss bioethicist. Since 2017 she has held the position of chair of bioethics at the Swiss Institute of Technology in Zurich, ETH Zurich. She is an elected member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.
Vayena was born in Greece [1] and grew up on the island of Lefkada. [2] [3] Vayena received a B.A. in history from the University of Athens, Greece and an M.Sc. in history of science, technology & medicine from Imperial College, University of London. Her master's research was on In vitro fertilisation where she examined the impact of new developments and the ethical questions. [3] She then moved to the United States where she earned a Ph.D. in the social history of medicine from the University of Minnesota. [3]
After her doctoral work, Vayena joined the World Health Organization (WHO) where she worked from 2000 until 2007. [1] While there she led some of the organisation's work on the ethics of reproductive technologies. [4] [5] She returned to academia, joining the University of Zurich where she received her Habilitation in Bioethics and Health Policy. In 2015 she received a Swiss National Science Foundation Professorship Award and became assistant professor of health policy at the University of Zurich. [2] IN 2017 she moved to ETH Zurich [3] where she was later appointed professor of bioethics at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, holding the first Chair of Bioethics of that Institution. [6] She is a Visiting Lecturer at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, [6] where she was previously a Fellow. [7]
Vayena is a specialist in the area of digital health ethics, health data governance, personalised medicine ethics, research ethics, ethics of genomics, health data governance and digital bioethics. She had focused on the normative aspects of independent oversight as well as the procedural principles that should guide independent oversight for digital health technologies. [8] She chaired the WHO expert group that issued the “Ethical Considerations to guide the use of digital proximity tracking technologies for COVID-19 contact tracing” and in this role she considered the role of contact tracing during the COVID-19 pandemic. [9]
She is an elected member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences. [6] [3]
Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health, including those emerging from advances in biology, medicine, and technologies. It proposes the discussion about moral discernment in society and it is often related to medical policy and practice, but also to broader questions as environment, well-being and public health. Bioethics is concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, theology and philosophy. It includes the study of values relating to primary care, other branches of medicine, ethical education in science, animal, and environmental ethics, and public health.
Medical ethics is an applied branch of ethics which analyzes the practice of clinical medicine and related scientific research. Medical ethics is based on a set of values that professionals can refer to in the case of any confusion or conflict. These values include the respect for autonomy, non-maleficence, beneficence, and justice. Such tenets may allow doctors, care providers, and families to create a treatment plan and work towards the same common goal. These four values are not ranked in order of importance or relevance and they all encompass values pertaining to medical ethics. However, a conflict may arise leading to the need for hierarchy in an ethical system, such that some moral elements overrule others with the purpose of applying the best moral judgement to a difficult medical situation. Medical ethics is particularly relevant in decisions regarding involuntary treatment and involuntary commitment.
Arthur L. Caplan is an American ethicist and professor of bioethics at New York University Grossman School of Medicine.
New eugenics, also known as liberal eugenics, advocates enhancing human characteristics and capacities through the use of reproductive technology and human genetic engineering. Those who advocate new eugenics generally think selecting or altering embryos should be left to the preferences of parents, rather than forbidden. "New" eugenics purports to distinguish itself from the forms of eugenics practiced and advocated in the 20th century, which fell into disrepute after World War II.
A designer baby is a baby whose genetic makeup has been selected or altered, often to exclude a particular gene or to remove genes associated with disease. This process usually involves analysing a wide range of human embryos to identify genes associated with particular diseases and characteristics, and selecting embryos that have the desired genetic makeup; a process known as preimplantation genetic diagnosis. Screening for single genes is commonly practiced, and polygenic screening is offered by a few companies. Other methods by which a baby's genetic information can be altered involve directly editing the genome before birth, which is not routinely performed and only one instance of this is known to have occurred as of 2019, where Chinese twins Lulu and Nana were edited as embryos, causing widespread criticism.
In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying people who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individuals, testing them for infection, and isolating or treating the infected, this public health tool aims to reduce infections in the population. In addition to infection control, contact tracing serves as a means to identify high-risk and medically vulnerable populations who might be exposed to infection and facilitate appropriate medical care. In doing so, public health officials utilize contact tracing to conduct disease surveillance and prevent outbreaks. In cases of diseases of uncertain infectious potential, contact tracing is also sometimes performed to learn about disease characteristics, including infectiousness. Contact tracing is not always the most efficient method of addressing infectious disease. In areas of high disease prevalence, screening or focused testing may be more cost-effective.
Donal O'Mathuna is an associate professor within the College of Nursing at The Ohio State University.
I. Glenn Cohen is a Canadian legal scholar and professor at Harvard Law School. He is also the director of Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
Françoise Elvina BaylisFISC is a Canadian bioethicist whose work is at the intersection of applied ethics, health policy, and practice. The focus of her research is on issues of women's health and assisted reproductive technologies, but her research and publication record also extend to such topics as research involving humans, gene editing, novel genetic technologies, public health, the role of bioethics consultants, and neuroethics. Baylis' interest in the impact of bioethics on health and public policy as well as her commitment to citizen engagement]and participatory democracy sees her engage with print, radio, television, and other online publications.
Christiane Woopen is a German medical ethicist. She was appointed Professor for Ethics and Theory of Medicine at the University of Cologne in 2009. There she is Executive Director of ceres, an interdepartmental institution created by the Rector and five of the six Faculties of Cologne University. Furthermore, she is Head of the Research Unit Ethics at the Faculty of Medicine and was from 2011 to 2019 Vice-Dean for Academic Development and Gender of that Faculty. From 2012 to 2016 she was Chair of the German Ethics Council and from 2014 to 2016 President of the Global Summit of National Ethics/Bioethics Committees. She has been portrayed by various periodicals.
Wendy Anne Rogers is a professor of clinical ethics at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. She was nominated as one of Nature's 10 people who mattered in 2019 for revealing ethical failures in China’s studies on organ transplantation.
Christine I. Mitchell is an American filmmaker and bioethicist and until her retirement in September 2022, the executive director of the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School (HMS).
The He Jiankui affair is a scientific and bioethical controversy concerning the use of genome editing following its first use on humans by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, who edited the genomes of human embryos in 2018. He became widely known on 26 November 2018 after he announced that he had created the first human genetically edited babies. He was listed in Time magazine's 100 most influential people of 2019. The affair led to ethical and legal controversies, resulting in the indictment of He and two of his collaborators, Zhang Renli and Qin Jinzhou. He eventually received widespread international condemnation.
Tanja Stadler is a mathematician and professor of computational evolution at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. She’s the current president of the Swiss Scientific Advisory Panel COVID-19 and Vize-Chair of the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zürich.
Lisa Campo-Engelstein is an American bioethicist and fertility/contraceptive researcher. She currently works at the University of Texas Medical Branch as the Harris L. Kempner Chair in the Humanities in Medicine Professor, the Director of the Institute for Bioethics & Health Humanities, and an Associate Professor in Preventive Medicine and Population Health. She is also a feminist bioethicist specializing in reproductive ethics and sexual ethics. She has been recognized in the BBC's list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world for 2019.
Vardit Ravitsky, an Israeli-Canadian, is a bioethicist, researcher, and author. She is president and CEO of The Hastings Center, a senior lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and past president of the International Association of Bioethics. She is a Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, where she chaired the COVID-19 Impact Committee. She is also a Fellow of The Hastings Center and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Previously, she was a full professor at the University of Montreal, and director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics.
Jean-Pierre Hubaux is a Swiss-Belgian computer scientist specialised in security and privacy. He is a professor of computer science at EPFL and is the head of the Laboratory for Data Security at EPFL's School of Computer and Communication Sciences.
Jessica Wilen Berg is an American attorney and specialist in Bioethics and Public Health Law. She is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis School of Law. She previously served as co-Dean at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, the first female co-Dean or Dean in the law school's 129-year history. She is a reference book author in the area of informed consent. Her scholarly opinion is often reported by institutions and media on ethical aspects iof innovative biomedical procedures.
Vasantha Muthuswamy was an Indian physician and bioethicist, head of the Indian Council of Medical Research's Division of Basic Medical Sciences, Traditional Medicine, and Bioethics, and the Division of Reproductive Health and Nutrition, from 1990 to 2008. She was a leader in establishing, revising, and promoting ethical guidelines for medical research in India. She participated in international organizations and projects focused on bioethics, and was a noted critic of ethics dumping.
Lynley Carol Anderson is a New Zealand academic, and is a full professor at the University of Otago, specialising in bioethics in health care education and sports and sports healthcare provision.
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