Stavros Niarchos Foundation Bioethics Academy

Effy Vayena is a Professor of Bioethics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ) and renowned expert at the intersection of medicine, data, and ethics. Her work focuses on important societal issues of data and technology as they relate to scientific progress and how it is or should be applied to public and personal health.

Vayena completed her education as a social historian with a PhD in Medical History from the University of Minnesota. A keen interest in health policy has led her to work with the World Health Organization. Upon her return to academia, Vayena was awarded a professorship by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She founded the Health Ethics and Policy Lab to tackle pressing questions that arise through technological advances such as genomic technologies and big data analytics in healthcare and research.

She received her habilitation from the University of Zurich in the field of bioethics and policy and has been appointed a Visiting Professor at the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, where she was previously a Fellow. She is a member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences and chairs the Ethical, Legal and Societal Implications advisory group of the Swiss Personalized Health Network, a national infrastructure and research program aiming to advance personalized health in Switzerland.

Vayena is a leading expert in the dynamic and diverse field of health data and ethics, successfully leveraging her academic work and international network to promote a fruitful debate about the ethics of health in the digital age. She has previously worked with the Wellcome Trust, OECD, Commonwealth Fund, Chatham House, and academic institutions and governments around the world.

Dr. Beauchamp was Professor of Philosophy in addition to his role at Georgtown’s Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He took graduate degrees from Yale University and The Johns Hopkins University, where he received his PhD in 1970. He then joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown, and in the mid-70s accepted a joint appointment at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. In late 1975, he joined the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he wrote the bulk of The Belmont Report (1978).

Dr. Beauchamp’s research interests are in the ethics of human-subjects research, the place of universal principles and rights in biomedical ethics, methods of bioethics, Hume and the history of modern philosophy, and business ethics. Beauchamp co-edited (with George G. Brenkert) The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics, and edited a 1,000-page book of original articles, The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Animals: a comprehensive, state-of-the-art presentation of the field not possible until very recently.

In 2004, Dr. Beauchamp was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) in recognition of outstanding contributions and significant publications in bioethics and the humanities. In 2003, he was presented Georgetown University’s Career Recognition Award, which is awarded to a faculty member in the University each year for distinguished research across an entire career. In 1994, Indiana University awarded Beauchamp its “Memorial Award for Furthering Greater Understanding and Exchange of Opinions between the Professions of Law and Medicine.”

Alessandro Blasimme holds an MA in bioethics from La Sapienza University of Rome (Italy), as well as a PhD in bioethics from the University of Milan – European School of Molecular Medicine (Italy). He has held research appointments at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM) as well as the University of Zürich (Switzerland), before joining the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich) as a senior researcher in bioethics in 2017. In 2013 he received a Fulbright-Schuman Scholarship to undertake research at the Program on Science, Technology and Society, Harvard University (USA) where he was a fellow. His research focuses on ethical and policy issues in biomedical innovation and biotechnology. His areas of expertise include translational medicine, precision medicine, regenerative medicine, genetic engineering, digital health and ageing. He has published widely in leading bioethics and medical journals and he is principal investigator in large European research consortia. He is currently a guest editor for a special issue (December 2019) on genome editing of the American Medical Association’s Journal of Ethics.

Ruth R. Faden, PhD, MPH, is the founder of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics. She was the Berman Institute’s Director from 1995 until 2016, and the inaugural Andreas C. Dracopoulos Director (2014-­2016). Dr. Faden was, and is currently, the inaugural Philip Franklin Wagley Professor of Biomedical Ethics. In the twenty years in which Dr. Faden led the Berman Institute, she transformed what was an informal interest group of faculty across Johns Hopkins into a one of the world’s premier bioethics programs with over 35 faculty, 30 staff and over 100 alumni. Under her direction, the Berman Institute became a university­wide unit of Johns Hopkins with its own building, reporting to the Provost. Dr. Faden also secured a significant endowment for the Berman Institute, including six endowed professorships and an endowed directorship.

Dr. Faden is a leading scholar in the field of bioethics. She is the author and editor of numerous books and many articles on biomedical ethics and public policy, including most significantly Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy (with Madison Powers), A History and Theory of Informed Consent (with Tom L. Beauchamp), Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights (with Madison Powers; forthcoming, Oxford University Press).

Dr. Faden’s current research focuses on structural justice theory, and on national and global challenges in food and agriculture, learning health care systems, health systems design and priority setting, and access to the benefits of global investments in biomedical research. Dr. Faden also works on ethical challenges in biomedical science, with a particular focus on women’s health and the rights and interests of pregnant women.

Dr. Faden is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine and a Fellow of the Hastings Center and the American Psychological Association. She has served on numerous national advisory committees and commissions, including President William Clinton’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, which she chaired. Dr. Faden co­launched the Global Food Ethics and Policy Program, sponsor of the 7 by 5 Agenda for Ethics and Global Food Security. She is also a co­founder of the Hinxton Group, a global community committed to advancing ethical and policy challenges in stem cell science, and the Second Wave initiative, an effort to ensure that the health interests of pregnant women are fairly represented in biomedical research and drug and device policies.

In 2011, Dr. Faden was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement Awards from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIMR).

Nancy Kass, ScD, is Vice-Provost for Graduate and Professional Education for Johns Hopkins University; she also is the Phoebe R. Berman Professor of Bioethics and Public Health, in the Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Deputy Director for Public Health in the Berman Institute of Bioethics. In 2009-2010, Dr. Kass was based in Geneva, Switzerland, where she was working with the World Health Organization (WHO) Ethics Review Committee Secretariat.

Dr. Kass received her BA from Stanford University, completed doctoral training in health policy from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and was awarded a National Research Service Award to complete a postdoctoral fellowship in bioethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University. Dr. Kass conducts empirical work in bioethics and health policy. Her publications are primarily in the field of U.S. and international research ethics, HIV/AIDS ethics policy, public health ethics, and ethics of public health preparedness. She is co-editor of HIV, AIDS and Childbearing: Public Policy, Private Lives (Oxford University Press, 1996).

Dr. Kass currently chairs the national Precision Medicine Initiative central IRB and she serves on the Health and Medicine Division committee of the National Academy of Medicine. Previously, she co-chaired the National Cancer Institute Committee to develop Recommendations for Informed Consent Documents for Cancer Clinical Trials, and served on the NCI’s central IRB.  She has served as consultant to the President’s Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and to the National Academy of Sciences. Current research projects examine ethics for a learning healthcare system, informed consent in randomized trials, ethics issues that arise in international health research and ethics and outbreak response.

Dr. Kass teaches the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s course on U.S. and International Research Ethics and Integrity, served as director of the PhD program in bioethics and health policy for 15 years, and is the director of the Johns Hopkins Fogarty African Bioethics Training Program. Dr. Kass is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine and a Fellow of the Hastings Center.

Jeremy Sugarman, MD, MPH, MA, is the Harvey M. Meyerhoff Professor of Bioethics and Medicine, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and deputy director for medicine of the Berman Institute of Bioethics at the Johns Hopkins University. He is an internationally recognized leader in the field of biomedical ethics with particular expertise in applying empirical methods and evidence-based standards for evaluating and analyzing bioethical issues. His contributions to both medical ethics and policy include his work on the ethics of informed consent, umbilical cord blood banking, stem cell research, international HIV prevention research, global health and research oversight.Dr. Sugarman is the author of over 300 articles, reviews and book chapters.  He has also edited or co-edited four books (Beyond Consent: Seeking Justice in Research; Ethics of Research with Human Subjects: Selected Policies and Resources; Ethics in Primary Care;and Methods in Medical Ethics).  Dr. Sugarman is a contributing editor for IRB and is on the editorial boards of several academic journals.

Dr. Sugarman consults and speaks internationally on a range of issues related to bioethics. He served as senior policy and research analyst for the White House Advisory Committee on Human Radiation Experiments, consultant to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and Senior Advisor to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. He also served on the Maryland Stem Cell Research Commission.

He was the founding director of the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine at Duke University where he was also a professor of medicine and philosophy. He is a faculty affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University and an Academic Icon of the University of Malaya.

Dr. Sugarman is currently a member of the Scientific and Research Advisory Board for the Canadian Blood Service and the Ethics and Public Policy Committees of the International Society for Stem Cell Research. He is co-chair of the Johns Hopkins’ Institutional Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. In addition, he is chair of the Ethics Working Group of the HIV Prevention Trials Network and co-leads the Ethics and Regulatory Core of the NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory.

Dr. Sugarman has been elected as a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, Association of American Physicians, and the Institute of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American College of Physicians and the Hastings Center.