ABOUT THE CENTER

WHO WE ARE

The Center for Bioethics is a leader in bioethics research and its deployment in the ethical, efficient, and compassionate practice of the life sciences and medicine. Interdisciplinary research in bioethics at Penn is located in the Center. Under the leadership of its founding director, Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., the Center has become a world-renowned educational and research enterprise that has appointed over 20 full and part-time faculty (Senior Fellows and Associates) with appointments in a number of University of Pennsylvania schools and departments including medicine, law, nursing, business, education, philosophy, psychology, sociology, religious studies and public policy. The Center is the home to many interdisciplinary research projects, including vaccine ethics, mental health ethics, pediatric biobanking and high school bioethics.

The Department of Medical Ethics is based in the School of Medicine. Currently Jonathan Moreno serves as Interim Chair of the department. The department is home to a distinguished faculty that produces and disseminates first-rate scholarship, conducts one of the leading bioethics Master’s programs in the world, and participates in a widely praised four-year curriculum on ethics and professionalism in the School of Medicine. Members of the department supervise research projects being conducted by undergraduates, masters students, medical students and PhD students. They also serve on various University committees such as the Institutional Review Boards and hospital ethics committees.

OUR MISSION

The field of bioethics emerged over thirty-five years ago. It provides a practical language for mediating between developments in science and popular culture and a means for our society to talk about its deepest moral concerns, fears and hopes. The Center employs this language to promote scholarly and public understanding of the ethical, legal, social and public policy implications of advances in the life sciences and medicine. It fosters informed dialogue about these issues across a broad spectrum of opinions that not only are the right questions addressed, but that the answers given rest upon solid facts and cogent arguments. From birth to death, from the lab to the stock market, Penn faculty engage in careful analysis, thoughtful reflection, and foster public discussion about the critical biomedical questions that put our traditions and values to the test.

OUTREACH & PUBLIC SERVICE

Whether giving talks at community meetings, testifying before Congress or the United Nations, or providing commentary to journalists, Center faculty are frequently called upon to share their expertise in bioethics. The Center is the leading resource in the world for the media. The thoughts and opinions of Center Faculty and Fellows have appeared in numerous publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Los Angeles Times, MSNBC.com and have also been featured on national news programs such as NBC Nightly News, ABC World News Tonight, 20/20, Prime Time Live, PBS' Jim Lehrer News Hour, and CNN. To further engage the public, provide meaningful insights and raise provocative questions, the Center also sponsors a variety of public lectures, symposia and workshops on timely bioethical issues.