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At the end of last year Nature Medicine listed a timeline of the top stories of 2012. Amongst them was the publication in June of the Council’s report on techniques for the prevention of mitochondrial DNA disorders.
Yearly archives: 2013
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In this post, I asked four departing members of Council – Sian Harding, Ray Hill, Mick Moran and Alison Murdoch – to share their reflections on their time working with us.
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Today, as people from across the film industry sleep off their celebration or disappointment following the 85th Academy Awards, we have begun the final week of excitedly rummaging through the morning post for submissions from a new breed of hopeful film makers. This Thursday, 28 February, is the closing date for Box Office Bioethics, the Council’s own student film competition – find out how to enter.
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The night before last I got home to find a letter from NHSBT on my doormat. It was a reminder to book a blood donation appointment, but in the envelope was also a flyer about joining the Organ Donor Register (ODR). Then I turned on the TV, and saw that ITV was showing something called ‘From the heart’. Coming on the eve of Valentine’s Day, I naturally feared the worst about what this could possibly entail, but a quick flick of the info button later I was surprised and intrigued to see that this was in fact an evening of awareness raising about the need for more organ donors. Literally seconds after I’d opened the NHSBT letter. A spooky coincidence? Maybe. (more…)
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I’ve been meaning to write a post about science minister David Willetts’ Eight Great Technologies pamphlet having attended its launch at the Policy Exchange recently. But my attention has been drawn to another debate that I’ve been following – about open policy making – by a tweet from the Government Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir John Beddington.
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I remember a journalist once telling me that when you see a speculative headline ending in a question mark, such as “Could Elvis be alive and working in my local chip shop?” the answer is invariably ‘no’. Last week the cover of The Economist featured a Rodin penseur, seated on a toilet, musing (via a thought bubble): ‘Will we ever invent anything this useful again?’
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The previous post reviewed some of our highlights of 2012, and in this post we turn our attention to what lies ahead in 2013.
In February we are set to launch a new teaching resource based on the Council’s report Human bodies: donation for medicine and research. This set of materials contains case studies, activity sheets and background information to help teachers carry out structured ethical debates in the classroom.
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2012 will be remembered for many things, and for the Council it was a particularly eventful year. There were several ‘firsts’ as we took new directions to promote discussion and inform policy in bioethics, whilst staying true to our task of providing timely, independent and balanced advice. Here are some of our highlights of the year.
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