Geisinger’s new Department of Bioethics and Decision Sciences is recruiting bioethicists
at all faculty ranks. Although faculty in the department pursue more traditional research in their respective fields
of bioethics and decision sciences — both broadly construed — the department’s unique vision is to bring these
fields together to collaborate on research and other activities at the intersection of their interests, especially
on studies of judgments and decision-making in the domains of health, science and innovation. The department
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is piloting an ethical, legal, and societal implications (ELSI) Visiting Scholar one-year position for a mid-career professional who studies the ELSI aspects of emerging technologies. As a global leader in innovation, DARPA starts about 50 new programs each year across a variety of technical disciplines to develop breakthrough technologies for national security, many of which include ELSI-relevant questions.
Project Narrative ?Ethical and Social Implications of In Vitro Gametogenesis? In vitro gametogenesis (IVG) is an emerging technology that involves making an egg or a sperm cell outside of the body from a skin cell or a progenitor germ cell, an approach recently validated in mouse models.
PROJECT NARRATIVE The goal of the biennial ELSI Congress is to provide a dedicated, regularly scheduled meeting for researchers focused on the ethical, legal and social implications of genetic and genomic research and its translation into clinical care.
The proposed administrative supplement is intended to close out the work undertaken during BRIDGES1 and generate research ideas for future grant proposals that will ensure the sustainability of the work of our CEER.
Research is currently underway that seeks to deepen our understanding of the role of genetic factors in substance dependence and response to treatment. In order for the potential benefits of emerging research to be realized, it is crucial to begin understanding how members of different racial/ethnic groups comprehend, interpret and respond to information about the role of genetics in addiction and treatment response, and in particular to reported racial differences in the frequency of alleles hypothesized to increase susceptibility to addiction or affect response to treatment.
The launch of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP), and the corresponding interest in bioengineered probiotic therapies that this new NIH initiative is likely to generate, provide a unique opportunity for research examining ethical and social considerations in the introduction of new therapeutic modalities. To date, analysis of ethical and social considerations in the use of probiotics have focused on "over the counter" applications where physician involvement in the selection and administration of the probiotic is limited.
The ability to manipulate atoms and molecules at the nanoscale has catalyzed the emerging field of nanomedicine. While many biological phenomena occur at the nanoscale, "nanomedicine" denotes material fabricated at the scale of 1-100 nanometers (nm) to take advantage of novel properties (biological, optical, thermal, chemical, and mechanical) that manifest at the nanoscale. A focal area of development is nanodiagnostics and nanotherapeutics.