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.
Lawrence Oglethorpe Gostin is an American law professor who specializes in public health law. He was a Fulbright Fellow and is best known as the author of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act and as a significant contributor to journals on medicine and law.
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York.
Albert R. Jonsen was one of the founders of the field of Bioethics. He was Emeritus Professor of Ethics in Medicine at the University of Washington, School of Medicine, where he was Chairman of the Department of Medical History and Ethics from 1987 to 1999. After retiring from UW, he returned to San Francisco, where he co-founded the Program in Medicine and Human Values at Sutter Health's California Pacific Medical Center in 2003.
Dan W. Brock was an American philosopher, bioethicist, and professor emeritus at Harvard University and Brown University. He was the Frances Glessner Lee Professor Emeritus of Medical Ethics in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the former Director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the Harvard Medical School, and former Director of the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health (PEH).
The Hastings Center Report is a bimonthly peer-reviewed academic journal of bioethics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Hastings Center. The editor-in-chief is Gregory Kaebnick. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2021 impact factor of 4.298. In 2018, it ranked it 5th out of 16 journals in the category "Medical Ethics".
Jacob M. Appel is an American polymath, author, bioethicist, physician, lawyer and social critic. He is best known for his short stories, his work as a playwright, and his writing in the fields of reproductive ethics, organ donation, neuroethics, and euthanasia. Appel's novel The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up won the Dundee International Book Prize in 2012. He is the director of Ethics Education in Psychiatry and a professor of psychiatry and medical education at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and he practices emergency psychiatry at the adjoining Mount Sinai Health System. Appel is the subject of the 2019 documentary film Jacob by director Jon Stahl.
Daniel John Callahan was an American philosopher who played a leading role in developing the field of biomedical ethics as co-founder of The Hastings Center, the world's first bioethics research institute. He served as the Director of The Hastings Center from 1969 to 1983, president from 1984 to 1996, and president emeritus from 1996 to 2019. He was the author or editor of 47 books.
Insoo Hyun is the Director of Research Ethics and a faculty member of the Center for Bioethics and senior lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as the Inaugural Director of the Center for Life Sciences and Public Learning at Boston's Museum of Science. As a Fulbright Scholar and Hastings Center Fellow, Dr. Hyun's interests include ethical and policy issues in stem cell research and new biotechnologies.
Michael Alan Grodin is Professor of Health Law, Bioethics, and Human Rights at the Boston University School of Public Health, where he has received the distinguished Faculty Career Award for Research and Scholarship, and 20 teaching awards, including the "Norman A. Scotch Award for Excellence in Teaching." He is also Professor of Family Medicine and Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine. In addition, Dr. Grodin is the Director of the Project on Medicine and the Holocaust at the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies, and a member of the faculty of the Division of Religious and Theological Studies. He has been on the faculty at Boston University for 35 years. He completed his B.S. degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his M.D. degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and his postdoctoral and fellowship training at UCLA and Harvard University.
Michael H. Cohen is an American attorney. He is the founder of the Cohen Healthcare Law Group, and a former professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health. Cohen has authored books on health-care law and policy.
Daniel Sulmasy is an American medical ethicist and former Franciscan friar. He has been Acting Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and on the faculty of the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioetics. He is the inaugural Andre Hellegers Professor of Biomedical Ethics, with co-appointments in the Departments of Philosophy and Medicine at Georgetown.
Mildred Z. Solomon is an American bioethics researcher.
Christopher Tarver Robertson is a specialist in health law working at the intersection of law, philosophy and science. His research explores how the law affects decision making in domains of scientific uncertainty and misaligned incentives, which he calls "institutional epistemology." Robertson is professor, N. Neal Pike Scholar, and Associate Dean at Boston University. He is affiliated faculty with the Petrie Flom Center for Health Care Policy, Bioethics and Biotechnology at Harvard Law School. His work includes tort law, bioethics, the First Amendment, and corruption in healthcare and politics. His legal practice has focused on complex litigation involving medical and scientific disputes.
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).
John F. Kilner is a bioethicist who held the Franklin and Dorothy Forman endowed chair in ethics and theology at Trinity International University, where he was also Professor of Bioethics and Contemporary Culture and Director of Bioethics Degree Programs. He is a Senior Fellow at The Center for Bioethics & Human Dignity (CBHD) in Deerfield, Illinois, where he served as Founding Director until Fall 2005.
Kathryn M. Zeiler is the Nancy Barton Scholar and Professor of Law at Boston University School of Law. Zeiler's work primarily focuses on health law, torts law, law and economics, medical malpractice, and disclosure law.
Vardit Ravitsky Israeli-Canadian is a bioethicist, researcher, and author. She is president and CEO of The Hastings Center, a full professor at the University of Montreal, and a senior lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is immediate-past president and current vice-president of the International Association of Bioethics, and the director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics. She is a Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, where she chaired the COVID-19 Impact Committee. She is also Fellow of The Hastings Center and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
