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.
In philosophy and neuroscience, neuroethics is the study of both the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. The ethics of neuroscience concerns the ethical, legal and social impact of neuroscience, including the ways in which neurotechnology can be used to predict or alter human behavior and "the implications of our mechanistic understanding of brain function for society... integrating neuroscientific knowledge with ethical and social thought".
Leon Richard Kass is an American physician, scientist, educator, and public intellectual. Kass is best known as a proponent of liberal arts education via the "Great Books," as a critic of human cloning, life extension, euthanasia and embryo research, and for his tenure as chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics from 2001 to 2005. Although Kass is often referred to as a bioethicist, he eschews the term and refers to himself as "an old-fashioned humanist. A humanist is concerned broadly with all aspects of human life, not just the ethical."
Bartha Maria Knoppers, OC OQ is a Canadian law Professor and an expert on the ethical aspects of genetics, genomics and biotechnology.
The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy institutes in the world.
Ruth R. Faden is an American scientist, academic, and founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute's Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director from 2014 to 2016. Faden is the inaugural Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics.
Tadeusz Pacholczyk is an American Roman Catholic priest, neuroscientist and writer.
Daniel Isaac Wikler is an American public health educator, philosopher, and medical ethicist. He is currently the Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics and Professor of Ethics and Population Health in the Department of Global Health and Population of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston. He is Director and a core faculty member in the Harvard Program in Ethics and Health (PEH). His current research interests are ethical issues in population and international health, including the allocation of health resources, health research involving human subjects, organ transplant ethics, and ethical dilemmas arising in public health practice, and he teaches several courses each year. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.
Jonathan D. Moreno is an American philosopher and historian who specializes in the intersection of bioethics, culture, science, and national security, and has published seminal works on the history, sociology and politics of biology and medicine. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
The National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia was established in August 2007, with support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Canada Research Chairs program, the UBC Brain Research Centre and the UBC Institute of Mental Health. Co-founded by Judy Illes and Peter Reiner, the Core studies neuroethics, with particular focus on ethics in neurodegenerative disease and regenerative medicine, international and cross-cultural challenges in brain research, neuroimaging and ethics, the neuroethics of enhancement, and personalized medicine.
Ruth Macklin is an American philosopher and retired professor of bioethics.
Sheldon Krimsky was a professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University, and adjunct professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Tufts University School of Medicine. He was a fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.
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.
George Quentin Daley is the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, and Professor of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. He was formerly the Robert A. Stranahan Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Director of the Stem Cell Transplantation Program at Boston Children's Hospital, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Associate Director of Children's Stem Cell Program, a member of the Executive Committee of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. He is a past president of the International Society for Stem Cell Research (2007–2008).
The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) is an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Evanston, Illinois, United States. The organization's mission is to promote excellence in stem cell science and applications to human health.
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.
Eric M. Meslin PhD FRSC FCAHS is a Canadian-American philosopher-bioethicist and current President and CEO of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA).
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.
A blastoid is an embryoid, a stem cell-based embryo model which, morphologically and transcriptionally resembles the early, pre-implantation, mammalian conceptus, called the blastocyst. The first blastoids were created by the Nicolas Rivron laboratory by combining mouse embryonic stem cells and mouse trophoblast stem cells. Upon in vitro development, blastoids generate analogs of the primitive endoderm cells, thus comprising analogs of the three founding cell types of the conceptus, and recapitulate aspects of implantation on being introduced into the uterus of a compatible female. Mouse blastoids have not shown the capacity to support the development of a foetus and are thus generally not considered as an embryo but rather as a model. As compared to other stem cell-based embryo models, blastoids model the preimplantation stage and the integrated development of the conceptus including the embryo proper and the two extraembryonic tissues. The blastoid is a model system for the study of mammalian development and disease. It might be useful for the identification of therapeutic targets and preclinical modelling.
Vardit Ravitsky 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.
