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The Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future (IBHF) is an affiliate of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and is housed at IIT's Chicago-Kent College of Law. The IBHF was founded in 2004 by Lori Andrews, J.D., and Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D., to discuss and analyze the ethical, legal, and social implications of biotechnologies.
The Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future offers assessments of the scientific benefits and risks of new developments in biotechnology in light of their cultural and ethical significance. IBHF couples continuing academic and policy research with the ability to provide analysis to industry and policymakers.
The Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future was established early in 2004 at Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology. Working at the intersection of a variety of disciplines, the IBHF has become as a leader in the study of biotechnology and its implications for the human future. The IBHF has regularly been called to Washington D.C. to present information to the United States Congress on matters related to biotechnology and public policy. In addition, the IBHF host numerous forums, symposia, and other conferences around the world aimed at furthering public discourse and understanding of important issues in biotechnology. Lori B. Andrews, J.D., distinguished professor of law at Chicago-Kent and a leading commentator on the legal and social issues raised by biotechnology, co-founded the Institute, and continues to serve as an advisor. Nigel M. de S. Cameron, Ph.D., a bioethics scholar whose special focus is the relations of human values and public policy, joined the law school as university research professor of bioethics with responsibility for the development of the Institute.
The IBHF conducts research on existing and emerging biotechnologies and their effect on law, intellectual property regimes, public health, medicine, genetics, public policy and the environment. IBHF focuses its efforts on six core areas:
Genetic discrimination While the rapid advances in genetic technologies offer great promise for the diagnosis and treatment of inheritable diseases, they also raise serious concerns about the potential for the use of this genetic information to discriminate against certain individuals. The IBHF analyzes state and federal law, public opinion, and industry information to make policy recommendations.
Germline intervention Germline Genetic Intervention makes possible changes that will spread to every subsequent generation; this form of genetic engineering can also be called inheritable genetic modification and has the potential to change the human species along eugenic lines. The IBHF analyzes scientific research related to germline intervention and its implications to law and bioethics.
Gene patents Patents for human genetic material grant exclusivity over naturally occurring sequences of human genes and their effect on research and diagnosis. The IBHF reviews and analyzes the effects of gene patents on research, healthcare, business, and individual rights.
Nanotechnology The IBHF reviews the development of nanotechnology policy in the United States and Europe, with special focus on the emerging nanotechnology ethical, legal, and social issues (NELSI).
Human cloning “Somatic cell nuclear transfer” technology can be used to bring about the birth of replica offspring, and to create embryos for experimentation. The IBHF reviews and analyzes scientific information and policy debates to make recommendations and presentations around the world, including the United Nations and in U.S. federal and state bodies.
Reproductive technology The IBHF analyzes developments in reproductive technology, and focuses research on its related ethical, legal, social, and political considerations.
IBHF themes represent diverse perspectives from which to analyze issues in biotechnology. These themes are designed to encourage academics, scientists, policy makers, and the general public to discuss complicated biotech issues in relation to their everyday lives. IBHF themes include: Arts; Bio 101; Business; Eugenics; Human Enhancement; International
The IBHF facilitates numerous conferences, symposia, and other events aimed at building a broad public discussion for issues in biotechnology, law, and society. Past events include:
Bioethics is the study of the ethical issues 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 and well-being. 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.
Directive 98/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 1998 on the legal protection of biotechnological inventions is a European Union directive in the field of patent law, made under the internal market provisions of the Treaty of Rome. It was intended to harmonise the laws of Member States regarding the patentability of biotechnological inventions, including plant varieties and human genes.
A designer baby is a baby whose genetic makeup has been selected or altered, often to include 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. Other potential methods by which a baby's genetic information can be altered involve directly editing the genome before birth. This process 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.
The Council for Responsible Genetics (CRG) was a nonprofit NGO with a focus on biotechnology.
Gregory Stock is a biophysicist, best-selling author, biotech entrepreneur, and the former director of the Program on Medicine, Technology and Society at UCLA’s School of Medicine. His interests lie in the scientific and evolutionary as well as ethical, social and political implications of today's revolutions in the life sciences and in information technology and computers.
Lori B. Andrews is an American professor of law. She is on the faculty of Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law and serves as Director of IIT's Institute for Science, Law, and Technology. In 2002, she was a visiting professor at Princeton University. She received her B.A. summa cum laude from Yale College and her J.D. from Yale Law School. Andrews is a Fellow of the Hastings Center.
Rosario Isasi is a health and human rights attorney, whose research and work focuses on the regulation of human genetic technologies.
The Center for Genetics and Society (CGS) is a nonprofit information and public affairs organization, based in Berkeley, California, United States. It encourages responsible use and regulation of new human genetic and reproductive technologies.
The Center on Nanotechnology and Society is an affiliate of Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) and is housed at IIT’s Chicago-Kent College of Law. Nano & Society is an affiliate of the Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future, also based at Chicago-Kent College of Law.
The impact of nanotechnology extends from its medical, ethical, mental, legal and environmental applications, to fields such as engineering, biology, chemistry, computing, materials science, and communications.
The societal impact of nanotechnology are the potential benefits and challenges that the introduction of novel nanotechnological devices and materials may hold for society and human interaction. The term is sometimes expanded to also include nanotechnology's health and environmental impact, but this article will only consider the social and political impact of nanotechnology.
The Center for Biotechnology, Law and Ethics is a bioethics, biotechnology, and biotechnology law research center of Cumberland School of Law located on the Samford University campus in Birmingham, Alabama. It is one of the few research centers of its kind at a United States law school, and, in conjunction with the Cumberland Law Review, the Center publishes an annual journal of scholarly works, which circulates in the United States and foreign countries.
The Nuffield Council on Bioethics is a UK-based independent charitable body, which examines and reports on bioethical issues raised by new advances in biological and medical research. Established in 1991, the Council is funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the Medical Research Council and the Wellcome Trust. The Council has been described by the media as a 'leading ethics watchdog', which 'never shrinks from the unthinkable'.
The International Center for Technology Assessment (ICTA) is a U.S. non-profit bi-partisan organization, based in Washington, D.C.
I. Glenn Cohen is a Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. He is also the director of Harvard Law School's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics.
A biological patent is a patent on an invention in the field of biology that by law allows the patent holder to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing the protected invention for a limited period of time. The scope and reach of biological patents vary among jurisdictions, and may include biological technology and products, genetically modified organisms and genetic material. The applicability of patents to substances and processes wholly or partially natural in origin is a subject of debate.
The acronyms ELSI and ELSA refer to research activities that anticipate and address ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) or aspects (ELSA) of emerging sciences, notably genomics and nanotechnology. ELSI was conceived in 1988 when James Watson, at the press conference announcing his appointment as director of the Human Genome Project (HGP), suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly declared that the ethical and social implications of genomics warranted a special effort and should be directly funded by the National Institutes of Health.
Human germline engineering is the process by which the genome of an individual is edited in such a way that the change is heritable. This is achieved through genetic alterations within the germ cells, or the reproductive cells, such as the egg and sperm. Human germline engineering is a type of genetic modification that directly manipulates the genome using molecular engineering techniques. Aside from germline engineering, genetic modification can be applied in another way, somatic genetic modification. Somatic gene modification consists of altering somatic cells, which are all cells in the body that are not involved in reproduction. While somatic gene therapy does change the genome of the targeted cells, these cells are not within the germline, so the alterations are not heritable and cannot be passed on to the next generation.
Nanotechnology in warfare is a branch of nano-science in which molecular systems are designed, produced and created to fit a nano-scale (1-100 nm). The application of such technology, specifically in the area of warfare and defence, has paved the way for future research in the context of weaponisation. Nanotechnology unites a variety of scientific fields including material science, chemistry, physics, biology and engineering.
Vardit Ravitsky is a bioethicist, researcher, and author. She is a professor at the University of Montreal and a part-time senior lecturer on Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She is the director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics, the president of the International Association of Bioethics, and a Fellow of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, where she Chairs the COVID-19 Impact Committee. She is also Fellow of The Hastings Center and of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.