Francophone African countries are among the most resource-constrained in the world. Citizens in these regions commonly struggle with a wide variety of health problems related to poverty, political conflict and social upheaval. Those involved in local efforts to improve health, in clinical medicine, biomedical research or public health initiatives, often find themselves in difficult situations … Continued

Vermont SAID The Vermont Study of Aid-in-Dying (Vermont SAID) investigates the implementation and cultural impact of Vermont’s “Patient Choice and Control at End of Life” Act (Act 39), enacted in May 2013. Due to the recent enactment of Act 39, and Vermont’s small size and the geographic proximity of key institutions, Vermont offers an unparalleled setting for … Continued

  Each year, hundreds of thousands of pregnant women in the US face significant medical illness during their pregnancies, and many more do so worldwide. Diabetes and hypertension complicate 40,000+ pregnancies; psychiatric illness complicates an estimated 500,000; cancer and autoimmune diseases are not uncommon. Yet we have surprisingly little data about how to safely and … Continued

Principal Investigator:  Rebecca L. Walker The aim of this project is to develop a virtue ethical approach to biomedical animal research science. A virtue ethical approach to animal research has not yet been developed but the promise of this framework in addressing ethical issues arising within the practice of animal research is significant. In addition, … Continued

Social and Ethical Aspects of Research on Curing HIV A Working Group Co-Principle Investigators: Stuart Rennie Joseph Tucker One of the defining qualities of living with HIV has been that it is incurable, and this tenet has powerfully formed and disrupted individual, organizational, and institutional identities. But recent medical advances have contested this basic fact, … Continued

Principle Investigator: Jill Fisher This project investigates healthy volunteers’ patterns of participation in Phase I clinical trials, with particular attention to the differences among minority groups. The majority of healthy volunteers in clinical trials are serial participants, meaning that they enroll repeatedly in studies, so the research has a longitudinal design to understand volunteers’ patterns … Continued

ARESA Co-Principal Investigators: Keymanthri Moodley (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa) Stuart Rennie (UNC) A collaboration between C:B Core Faculty member Stuart Rennie and colleagues at Stellenbosch University in South Africa has been awarded a grant from the Fogarty International Center of NIH to support research ethics education inSouthern Africa. The Advancing Research Ethics training in Southern … Continued

Co-Principal Investigators Eric Juengst (UNC) Jennifer Fishman (McGill University) Richard Settersten (Oregon State University) “Personalized Genomic Medicine” (PGM) has become a banner which unites a very wide array of scientific, clinical, and commercial initiatives, from medical sequencing and pharmacogenomics research to medical school curricula, public health interventions, nutritional regimes, and direct-to-consumer “recreational” genome scanning. Across … Continued