Berman Institute Monthly Newsletter – December 2020
December 2020
Announcements
Researchers from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine will lead an interdisciplinary, multi-institution study of the ethical, legal and social implications of workplace genomic testing in the United States. Debra Mathews is part of the research team.
This award was covered in Genome Web and Global Banking and Finance.
Cross-Disciplinary Team Will Design, Develop Devices to Better Treat Spinal Cord Injuries
A team of Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers and neurosurgeons has received $13.48 million from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop implantable ultrasound and other devices that could revolutionize care for people suffering from spinal cord injuries. Alan Regenberg is part of the research team.
Postdoctoral fellow Brandi Baud Scully has accepted a fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital for congenital cardiac surgery. She will start in August 2021.
Jeremy Sugarman served on the Research and Research Oversight Working Group for the National Academy of Medicine Special Publication: Health Data Sharing to Support Better Outcomes: Building a Foundation of Stakeholder Trust.
Events
Vaccine Ethics: What Are We Learning from COVID-19?
Cosponsors: Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs & The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
December 3, 12:00 – 1:30 pm EST
As the race for COVID–19 vaccines enters its next stage, we are faced with broad ethical challenges, along with specific questions of principle and practice. Dr. Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, will moderate a panel discussion on the ethics of the COVID-19 vaccines. Panelists: Ruth Faden, Clive Meanwell, Nicole Hassoun, and Reed Tuckson.
Theater of War for Frontline Medical Providers: Montefiore
December 8, 12:00 – 2:00 pm EST
This event uses Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Women of Trachis to create a vocabulary for discussing themes such as personal risk, death/dying, grief, deviation from standards of care, abandonment, helplessness, and complex ethical decisions, the project aims to foster connection, community, moral resilience, and positive action. Featuring performances by Kathryn Erbe, Marjolaine Goldsmith, Frankie Faison, and David Strathairn. Open to all; link for free registration.
Adapting the Monitored Emergency Use of Unregistered and Investigational Interventions (MEURI) to a high income country setting
December 16, 8:00 – 9:00 am EST
Hot Topics in Research Ethics Series: Dr. Voo Teck Chuan will examine the application of WHO’s MEURI framework to the ethical provision of unproven interventions to treat COVID-19 patients in Singapore. Register here.
Publications
Outreach
December 10
Jeffrey Kahn will serve on a panel titled “Let’s Talk Digital Ethics” at the 4th Annual NODE Health Digital Medicine Conference, hosted by the Network of Digital Evidence in Health.
December 1
Anne Barnhill was an invited guest at a workshop on How SARS2 Vaccine Allocation Schemes Ought to Respond to Background Inequity, hosted by the Center for Population-Level Bioethics at Rutgers University.
November 21
Anne Barnhill and Jan Dutkiewicz gave a talk titled “Peak Anthropocene: Cellular Agriculture and the Politics of Disruptive Harm Reduction” at a workshop on Assailing the Anthropocene: The Ethics of Disruptive Innovations for Surviving Our Climate-Changed World hosted by the Department of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University.
November 20
Joseph Carrese and Jeremy Sugarman presented at a webinar on Pandemic Related Consent, Research and Ethics hosted by the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC). Dr. Carrese’s presentation was titled “COVID-19 and Clinical Ethics: Considerations for Practitioners and Practice.” Dr. Sugarman’s presentation was titled “Ethics and COVID-19 Research Institutional Prioritization.”
November 14-19
Mark Hughes gave a meeting titled “Two Sides of the Same Coin: End of Life Challenges During COVID-19 for Patients and Healthcare Professionals” at the 2020 AMA Medical Student Section Virtual Interim Meeting.
November 13
Jeremy Sugarman, along with Judith Carrithers, gave a talk titled “Working Towards Ethically Sound Research” at the Cement Extramural Leadership Institute at the National Institutes of Health
November 10
Jeffrey Kahn moderated a session titled “Our Health, Your Security” at the 9/11 Memorial Summit on Security.
November 9
Jeremy Sugarman spoke at the International Virtual Conference: Research, Ethics and the Quest to Cure COVID-19 hosted by the Bioethics and Law Center at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University. His talk was titled “Ethics and COVID-19 Research Institutional Prioritization.”
November 6 & November 18
Jeremy Sugarman served on two workshops of the Global HIV Vaccine Enterprise’s Virtual Workshop Series: Design Approaches for Current and Future HIV Prevention Efficacy Trials. During the session on Future Design Approaches for Settings where All Participants Are On Active Prevention, Dr. Sugarman spoke at two subsessions on ARV Based Prevention (November 6) and Vaccines (November 18).
November 6
Yoram Unguru gave a talk at the Thirteenth Annual Pediatric Bioethics Conference, hosted by the Wolfson Children’s Hospital at the University of North Florida. His talk was titled “Respect or Resist – Refusal of Standard Treatments for Favorable Prognosis Childhood Cancer. When Children & Parents Say No.”
November 4
Anne Barnhill gave a guest lecture on the ethics of COVID-19 vaccine allocation in the Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Human Research course at the NIH Department of Bioethics.