The science, ethics & governance of genome editing

Dr. Greg Bognar (Stockholm University)

Greg Bognar is Associate Professor of Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University and Senior Researcher at the Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics (CHE). He is the co-author of The Ethics of Health Care Rationing (Routledge, 2014, second edition forthcoming in 2022) and co-editor of Aging without Agism? Conceptual Puzzles and Policy Proposals (forthcoming from Oxford University Press). His main research interests are in population-level bioethics and politics, philosophy, and economics (PPE), particularly in priority settings in health care, the ethical issues of demographic change and population ageing, and issues of distributive justice in public health.

Dr. Emilian Mihailov (University of Bucharest)

Emilian Mihailov is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, and director of the Research Centre in Applied Ethics, within the Faculty of Philosophy. He has published on moral psychology, neuroethics, the ethics of enhancement and experimental bioethics in leading journals such as American Journal of Bioethics, Science and Engineering Ethics, Bioethics, Consciousness & Cognition, Review of Philosophy and Psychology. Emilian Mihailov is the director of the ENHATEC project, which aims to explore the ethical issues raised by enhancement technologies and how moral enhancement can address the existential threat of climate change.

Prof. José María Carrascosa (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)

José María Carrascosa obtained his PhD at the Universidad Autónoma in Madrid (UAM) in 1983 and moved to Munich for a postdoctoral stay at the Institute for Diabetes Research. Back at UAM in 1986, he continued his research on diabetes and obesity-associated ageing, becoming project leader in 1991. He became Associated Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in 1989 and Full Professor in 2010. He has taught bioethics and science ethics to undergraduate and postgraduate students since 2008. He is member of the Research Ethics Committee of UAM and was Dean of the Faculty of Sciences (2013–2021).

Prof. Dr. Marius Ueffing (University of Tübingen)

Marius Ueffing is the Director of the Institute for Ophthalmic Research and Co-Chair of the Centre for Ophthalmology at the University Medical Center in Tübingen, one of the largest centers for ophthalmology in Europe. His research combines cellular and molecular physiology with genome and proteome analysis to analyse the impact of genetic and environmental factors on human health on a systemic level. The focus of the Ueffing lab is neurodegeneration in the retina with specific emphasis on the molecular mechanisms of disease towards the development of targeted therapy.

Dr. Oliver Feeney (University of Tübingen)

Dr. Feeney’s primary research is on the ethical, legal, and social (justice) implications of biomedical technologies, particularly the ethics and governance of genome editing; ethics of human enhancement; fostering trust with participatory involvement in science and medicine, and the role of patents in the context of new technologies. His PhD on Genetics and Justice (2009) combined political philosophy and bioethics and was awarded that year’s National Basil Chubb Prize for best PhD thesis in any field of politics in Ireland. His publications have appeared in Bioethics, Developing World Bioethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, and The American Journal of Bioethics. 

Dr. Gardar Árnason (University of Tübingen)

Gardar Árnason is currently the managing director of the research unit “Ethics of Genome Editing” at the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine. He studied philosophy at the University of Toronto, Canada (PhD 2006). His research focuses on the ethics of genetics, neuroethics and ethical issues in animal research. He is the author of Foucault and the Human Subject of Science (Springer 2018) and has published articles in Science and Engineering Ethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Journal of Medical Ethics, American Journal of Bioethics, AJOB Neuroscience, and Medicine, Healthcare and Philosophy.

Dr. Davina Höll (University of Tübingen)  

Davina Höll holds a PhD in American Studies. She completed her dissertation on the politics and poetics of cholera at the interface of literary studies and medical history as part of the DFG Research Training Group "Life Sciences – Life Writing” at Mainz University. She currently works on her transdisciplinary post-doctoral project "Human Microbiomes and Antibiotic Resistance” in the Cluster of Excellence 2124 CMFI at Tübingen University, where she works on a project that investigates the historical, epistemological, and ethical implications of an anticipated paradigm shift concerning human microbes in the wake of the antibiotic resistance crisis.

Katharina Trettenbach (University of Tübingen)

With a background between biochemistry, psychology, neuroscience and medicine, Katharina has been a member of the research group Ethics of Genome Editing at the Institute for the Ethics and History of Medicine since 2017, where she has been pursuing doctoral research since 2020. Her dissertation project deals with the ethical challenges of translational research in Germline Genome Editing. Katharina also works at the Department for Medical Ethics at the University of Potsdam, working on medical ethics and digitization. Aside from research ethics, her research interests include neuroethics, the ethics of (bio)technologies and their intersections with the philosophy of medicine.

Dr. Katja Herges (University of Tübingen)

Katja Herges is a physician and literary scholar. In addition to her medical degree, she has earned a Ph.D. in German studies and feminist theory and research from the University of California, Davis. Previously, she has conducted translational research in neuroimmunology at Stanford University Medical school and has practised as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in different clinical settings in Germany. In her current projects, she combines her interdisciplinary background in research in medical humanities with a focus on cultural studies of medicine. She has published on visual cultures of illness, body theory, life writing and chronic illness.

Regina Müller M.A. (University of Tübingen)

Regina Müller works at the Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. Her background is in philosophy and applied ethics, with a research focus on medical ethical issues regarding digitalization in medicine. In the “Check.App” project at the University of Tübingen, she investigates the ethical and social implications of health apps as an example for digital developments in medicine. Besides digitalization, she has strong interests in feminist perspectives in medicine and bioethics. At the CIVIS summer school, she will enjoy the opportunity to work together (with you) on feminist perspectives on genome editing.

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Ehni (University of Tübingen)

Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Ehni has a background in philosophy with a focus on moral philosophy and medical ethics. He is currently deputy director of the Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine, University of Tübingen. His main areas of research are ethics and ageing and ethics of biomedical research involving human subjects. He is a member of the ethics commission of the federal board of physicians, Baden Wuerttemberg, and of the clinical ethics committee, University Clinic Tübingen.

Dr. Uta Müller (University of Tübingen)

Dr. Uta Müller, research assistant, International Centre for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW), University, Tübingen. She studied philosophy and political sciences at the universities of Heidelberg and Munich. Uta Müller is head of the department “Ethics and Education” of the IZEW and responsible for the interdisciplinary study program of the IZEW. Her research focuses on various issues in Applied Ethics, especially questions of didactics of philosophy and ethics, and ethical questions of the social sciences. She is also responsible for the certificate study program “Ethik in der Praxis” (for all students) at the University of Tübingen.