Research

The Center’s Core Faculty engage in a wide range of empirical and normative scholarship. To catch up on the Center’s latest publications, click here.
Examples of current projects include:

Healthy Volunteers as Model Organisms

Posted 2 years ago

Comparative Research Ethics and Policy for Phase I Trials Principal Investigators: Jill A. Fisher and Rebecca L. Walker This project addresses the need for a novel evidence-based approach to the protection of Phase I healthy volunteers. Phase I clinical trials test … Continued

Ethics of HIV-Related Research Involving Adolescents in Kenya

Posted 2 years ago

Despite the high social value of adolescent HIV prevention research in sub-Saharan Africa, investigators are reluctant to involve adolescents in studies with HIV testing and disclosure of results because of ethical concerns about the risks of their participation. This study … Continued

Re-Engaging Ethics: Ethical Issues in Engaged Research

Posted 3 years ago

Project Description Re-Engaging Ethics is a project that is funded by the Greenwall Foundation. The purpose of this project is to create and disseminate recommendations for the review and conduct of community-engaged research, by engaging a diverse set of stakeholders … Continued

Strengthening Bioethics Capacity and Justice in Health

Posted 3 years ago

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, … Continued

Vermont Study on Aid in Dying

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

Second Wave Initiative

Posted 3 years ago

  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 … Continued

Virtue Ethics and Animal Research

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

searcHIV

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

Membership Recruitment in Hospital Ethics Committees

Posted 3 years ago

Research Team Arlene Davis Anya Prince Jean Cadigan This exploratory study will gather information about recruitment, appointment, and training of members for hospital ethics committees (HECs). Past studies have examined HECs, but have focused on the roles of the committees … Continued

HealthyVOICES

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

Advanced Research Ethics Training in South Africa

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

Anticipating Personalized Genomic Medicine Impact and Implications

Posted 3 years ago

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 … Continued

Approaches to Ethics Teaching in Medical Education

Posted 3 years ago

Arlene Davis, JD Jean Cadigan, PhD Benny Joyner, MD, MPH Rob Lovrich, MD Judit Kuhn, MD Paul Ossman, MD, MPH The Hospital Ethics Committee and Center for Bioethics are conducting a study of ethics education in order to develop ways to improve … Continued