December 31, 2008
International Regional UNESCO Conference: “Methodological and Methodical Issues in Bioethics Today” Ethics Department, Institute of Philosophy and Ethics, Faculty of Arts, Presov University Presov, Slovakia January 21-22, 2009 Background: The aim of the conference is to analyze and discuss methodological … Read More
December 18, 2008
The Bioethics Society of the English-Speaking Caribbean 3rd Annual Bioethics Forum “Bioethical Standards: People and the Environment” June 5, 2009 Call for Abstracts Deadline for Receipt of Abstracts – February 1, 2009 Trinidad & Tobago is the venue for the … Read More
December 17, 2008
A health-care organization based in Oakland, California, is building a biobank that could rival the world’s largest in size and scope. The biobank will be run by the health-care provider Kaiser Permanente and has received a grant of US$8.6 million … Read More
December 17, 2008
It’s become widely known that major health disparities exist among the nation’s minority communities, including higher rates of certain cancers, high blood pressure and diabetes, and poorer access to medical insurance and disease screenings. Yet with all of the statistics … Read More
December 17, 2008
The 2008 Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences survey shows that eight in 10 adults nationwide favor making genetic testing easily available to all who want it, and 54 percent say that the benefits of conducting genetic research outweigh the risks. … Read More
December 17, 2008
You can hardly read a medical or biomedical research story today without bumping into a bioethicist. Last week they were opining on the Vatican’s new guidelines for reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilization. This week you find them in … Read More
December 17, 2008
Terminally ill patients for whom conventional medicine offers little benefit are often willing to try unproven therapies. Because these individuals are often ineligible for clinical trials and compassionate use can be procedurally difficult to secure, gaining access to experimental drugs … Read More
December 17, 2008
Reconstructive surgeon Dr. Maria Siemionow replaced nearly all of the woman’s face — 80 percent — with that of a dead female donor in an operation a couple weeks ago. (Associated Press)
December 16, 2008
The American Journal of Bioethics (Volume 8, Issue 12, 2008) is now available by subscription only. Articles Include: “Medical and Nursing Students’ Television Viewing Habits: Potential Implications for Bioethics” by Matthew J. Czarny,  Ruth R. Faden,  Marie T. Nolan,  Edwin Bodensiek, and … Read More
December 16, 2008
The 25th Anniversary of the Baby Doe Rules: Perspectives from the Fields of Law, Health Care, Ethics, and Disability Policy February 13, 2009 Atlanta, Georgia The symposium, “The 25th Anniversary of the Baby Doe Rules: Perspectives from the Fields of Law, … Read More
December 16, 2008
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration plans to use new computer technology to simulate how some drugs in development are supposed to work, helping researchers and regulators spot safety and effectiveness issues before late-stage tests on humans are completed. [Premium … Read More
December 16, 2008
Screening newborns for certain inherited conditions is undertaken in most countries to provide a means of early identification and treatment of conditions such as phenylketonuria (PKU) and sickle cell anaemia. With the emergence of new high-throughput technologies such as tandem … Read More
December 16, 2008
The European Patent Office (EPO) has finally refused to grant a patent for stem cells that necessarily involved the destruction of a human embryo. This has left open the question of whether human stem cells will be patentable if they … Read More
December 16, 2008
As director of Stanford’s Center for Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research and Education, Renee A. Reijo Pera, 49, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, works at ground zero of the controversy over human embryonic stem cells. She uses human embryos … Read More
December 16, 2008
Whitehead Institute researchers have greatly simplified the creation of so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, cutting the number of viruses used in the reprogramming process from four to one. Scientists hope that these embryonic stem-cell-like cells could eventually be used … Read More
December 15, 2008
It is interesting how some things never change. In the 1990s, Jack Kevorkian’s death circus lit a wildfire of debate over assisted suicide, with the default position being that since “terminally ill” people are going to commit suicide because the … Read More
December 15, 2008
Pictures you are observing can now be recreated with software that uses nothing but scans of your brain. It is the first “mind reading” technology to create such images from scratch, rather than picking them out from a pool of … Read More
December 15, 2008
Several years ago, when nanotechnology—the art and science of engineering ridiculously tiny stuff—was just starting to worm its way into public consciousness, I attended a meeting of scientists and government regulators at the National Science Foundation. The scientists were all … Read More
December 15, 2008
Last month, researchers reported the rate of new cancers in general is inching down and death rates continue to decline in the United States — important good news in the fight against the dreaded disease. But when it comes to … Read More
December 15, 2008
On 31 October, radiologist Elias Zerhouni stepped down after six and a half years as director of the $29-billion US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world’s largest funder of biomedical research. Zerhouni’s tenure was marked by an increasing emphasis … Read More
December 15, 2008
The Vatican hardened its opposition Friday to using embryos for stem cell research, cloning and in-vitro fertilization. But in a major new document on bioethics, it showed flexibility on some forms of gene therapy and left open questions surrounding embryo … Read More
December 15, 2008
The state-level findings echo those in national November reports from The Physicians’ Foundation and the American College of Physicians that project escalating primary care physician shortages. Fewer medical residents are choosing primary care specialties, contributing to the strain on patient … Read More
December 15, 2008
The first demonstration that a single adult stem cell can self-renew in a mammal was reported at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco. (PhysOrg)
December 15, 2008
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center January 16-17, 2009 Robert C. Hickey Auditorium 11th Floor, R. Lee Clark Clinic 1515 Holcombe Boulevard Houston, Texas Deadline for advanced registration is December 19, 2008. See website for a list of … Read More
December 15, 2008
University of Minnesota Deinard Memorial Lecture on Law & Medicine The Emergent Logic of Health Reform Prof. M. Gregg Bloche, JD, MD Georgetown University Thursday, January 29, 2009 11:30 am-1:00 pm Theater, Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota In his … Read More
