Science Ethics

The Berman Institute has made foundational contributions to science ethics, shaping how scientific research is conducted, governed, and translated into policy. Its work spans responsible conduct of research, ethical oversight of emerging technologies, data stewardship, integrity in scientific communication, and—more recently—leadership in the rapidly evolving field of artificial intelligence ethics.

Through scholarship, policy engagement, and interdisciplinary partnerships, the Institute has helped define modern expectations for ethical science in a global and technologically complex world.

30 Years of Achievement

The Institute has fostered collaborations bridging science, engineering, philosophy, law, and public policy. These partnerships have led to influential insights on regulatory frameworks, stakeholder engage ment, the governance of emerging biotechnologies, and the ethical design of scientific tools and institutions.

The Berman Institute collaborates with scientists at the University and globally to address growing ethical challenges raised by fields such as stem cell science, neuroscience, and genomics. The Berman Institute has been instrumental in convening and helping to draft positions of the Hinxton Group, an international consortium on stem cells, ethics and law that has published highly visible statements on stem cell science and ethics since 2006. In 2015, they also published an important statement on ethics and CRISPR (genome-editing) technology. The Berman Institute has longstanding expertise in genetics and ethics, with multiple projects on varied issues posed by new genetic technologies.

14 Berman Institute faculty have led committees at Johns Hopkins, for the state of Maryland, and for the International Society for Stem Cell Research on ethics and stem cell science. They have also chaired and served on committees for the US National Academies on ethics and techniques for preventing maternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA diseases, on gene editing, and other topics in ethics and genetic science.

Its faculty have served on national advisory committees and expert panels that guide science policy, technology assessment, and risk governance. The Institute was home to BRIDGES (Bridging Infectious Disease, Genomics, and Society), a Center of Excellence for Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) research supported by the National Human Genome Research Institute. BRIDGES was designed to examine the ethical, legal, social, historical, and policy issues confronting the incorporation of genomics in the prevention, outbreak control, and treatment of a range of infectious diseases. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Phase I of BRIDGES explored ELSI issues that would arise in personalizing approaches to the prevention and treatment of selected infectious diseases using genomic information. Phase 2 was inspired by our rapidly evolving understanding of disease causation. There are a growing number of examples of “genetic diseases” with an infectious component, and of “infectious diseases” with a genetic component. The COVID-19 pandemic has expanded the territory in which to explore the shifting boundaries between infectious disease and genetic disease, and between uses of emerging technologies.

The Center for Ethics, Law, Policy and the Life Science (CELLS) is a new program area at Johns Hopkins hosted at the Berman Institute. The work of CELLS includes issue mapping, policy analysis, and governance recommendations, taking advantage of the Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC, and the opportunities it creates for convening groups, hosting meetings, engaging in policy-related work, and connecting with policymakers, the US National Academies, professional societies, non-governmental organizations, and others.

A key area of growing importance is the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), data science, and algorithmic decision-making. The Institute’s emerging work in AI ethics addresses fairness, transparency, accountability, and the societal impacts of machine learning (ML) systems. Faculty have examined issues such as bias in health-related algorithms, responsible deployment of AI tools in scientific research, governance of large datasets, and the ethical obligations of developers and institutions using AI for discovery or decision support. This work positions the Institute as a leader in shaping norms for AI development that prioritize human rights, equity, and trustworthy innovation.

Science Ethics Highlights