Science Ethics - Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics

Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Research & Outreach
Areas
Science Ethics

Faculty

Biomedical discovery is at the heart of human progress.

Where advances are made, serious ethical questions are raised about the morality, safety, and consequences of emerging science. The Berman Institute is at the forefront of national and global academic and public policy debates surrounding these questions.

Faculty

Berman Institute faculty members are active in both scholarly and academic roles but also in many other areas such as institutional review boards and operations, as well as many policy making initiatives. We invite you to learn more about our faculty and their contributions.

View Faculty in Science Ethics

Education

Berman Institute faculty provide lectures and courses in science and ethics generally, the role of the scientist, and in stem cell science ethics and neuroethics more specifically. Teaching is provided to PhD students in genomic sciences to students across multiple Johns Hopkins campuses with a MOOC type course also being developed.

Research/Scholarship

The Berman Institute collaborates with Johns Hopkins and other scientists globally to address growing ethical challenges raised by fields such as stem cell science, brain 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, since 2006, has published highly visible statements on stem cell science and ethics and, in 2015, on ethics and CRISPR (genome editing) technology. The Berman Institute has longstanding depth in genetics and ethics with multiple projects on varied issues posed by new genetic technologies.

Service/Policy

Berman Institute faculty have led committees at Johns Hopkins, for the State of Maryland, and for theInternational Society for Stem Cell Research on ethics and stem cell science; have chaired and served on committees for the National Academy of Medicine on ethics and techniques for preventing maternal transmission of mitochondrial DNA diseases, and gene editing and served on other national committees related to ethics and genetic science; the Berman Institute publishes highly subscribed email newsletters providing weekly news roundups on a variety of topics including: ethics and brain science, and ethics and stem cell science. providing key resources for these fields.

Resources

The following links connect to ongoing and previously completed work, demonstrating the Berman Institute’s leadership and achievements in advancing understanding of the relationship between scientific discovery and bioethics.

Related Projects

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Center for Ethics, Law, Policy and the Life Sciences (CELLS)

Issue mapping, policy analysis, and governance recommendations, taking advantage of Hopkins Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC

Neuroscience & Society

Connecting neuroscientists with stakeholders and the general public

Robert H. Levi Symposium: The Ethics of Virtual Humans

An exploration of the ethical dimensions of using the conversational capabilities of human-like, non-physical entities for health and social support

Seminar Series

Leading bioethics scholars from around the world lecture on vital issues in the field at our biweekly Seminar Series. Lectures, held at lunchtime, are free and open to the public.