Human bodies: donation for medicine and research

Positions held correct at October 2010

Professor Dame Marilyn Strathern (Chair)

Former Mistress of Girton College Cambridge and William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge

Marilyn Strathern, recently retired from the Department of Social Anthropology and from the headship of Girton College, both of Cambridge University, has worked on gender relations and legal anthropology in Papua New Guinea and on kinship and the new reproductive technologies in the UK.

Professor Janet Darbyshire

Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology, University College London; formerly Director of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit and Joint Director of the NIHR Clinical Research Network.

Janet Darbyshire is Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology, University College, London, recently retired from the Directorship of the MRC Clinical Trials Unit and Joint Directorship of the NIHR Clinical Research Network. As a clinical epidemiologist, she has worked on the design, conduct and analysis of clinical trials in the UK and internationally, primarily in HIV infection, tuberculosis and cancer, and on the delivery of clinical research in the NHS.

Professor Bobbie Farsides

Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics, Brighton and Sussex Medical School

Bobbie Farsides is Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Ethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She was a member of the Organ Donation Taskforce and has gone on to serve on the UK Donation Ethics Committee. She is currently working on an NIHR funded project looking at donation of organs within the South Asian community in the UK. More broadly her research has focused on the experience of scientists and health care professionals working in ethically contested fields such as embryo and stem cell research and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, including work on establishing an ethical framework for embryo donation for scientific research.

Professor Sian Harding

Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College London

Sian Harding is a Professor of Cardiac Pharmacology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, London. As a basic scientist with a long-standing interest in heart failure, she uses both human myocardial tissue and embryonic stem cells in her work. She is part of the team leading a first-in-human clinical trial for cardiac gene therapy.

Dr Tim Lewens

Reader in Philosophy of the Sciences, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge

Tim Lewens is Reader in Philosophy of the Sciences at the University of Cambridge, where he is also a Fellow of Clare College. His academic work focuses on the philosophy of biology (with a special interest in Darwinism and evolutionary theory), the philosophy of science, and philosophical bioethics.

Dr Gillian Lockwood

Medical Director, Midland Fertility Services, West Midlands

Gillian Lockwood is Medical Director of Midland Fertility Services and has worked in the field of assisted conception and reproductive medicine for over 20 years. She has a background in philosophy, ethics and economics, and has published widely on the socio-biology of infertility with special reference to gamete donation.

Professor Theresa Marteau

Professor of Health Psychology, King’s College London, and Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit, Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge

Theresa Marteau is Professor of Health Psychology at King’s College London and Director of the Centre for the Study of Incentives in Health (with the London School of Economics and Queen Mary, University of London). Since January 2011 she is also Director of the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the Institute of Public Health, University of Cambridge. She studied psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and at the University of Oxford. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social Sciences.

Professor Naomi Pfeffer

Honorary Research Associate, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University College London

Naomi Pfeffer is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Science & Technology Studies, University College London. She is a medical historian and medical sociologist. Her research interests include infertility and new reproductive technologies, and human tissue collections at the beginning and end of life.

Professor David Price (deceased January 2012)

Professor of Medical Law, De Montfort University

David Price is Professor of Medical Law at De Montfort University School of Law in Leicester where he is Leader of the Healthcare Law Unit. He has been involved in writing and researching aspects of the law and ethics relating to transplantation and the use of human tissue for research for many years, and was a member of the Organ Donation Taskforce investigating the potential impact of an opt out system for organ donation in the UK in 2008.

Mr Keith Rigg

Consultant Transplant Surgeon, Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust

Keith Rigg is a Consultant Surgeon at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust where he is Director of Transplantation and Vice-chair of the Trust Donation Committee. He has been involved in organ donation and transplantation for over 20 years. He is a non-executive member of the Human Tissue Authority, Past-President of the British Transplantation Society and has a particular interest in the ethics, public policy and legal issues relating to organ donation and transplantation.

Professor Bob Simpson

Professor of Anthroplogy, Durham University

Bob Simpson is a Professor of Anthropology at Durham University. He has written widely on the anthropology of bioethics in relation to new reproductive and genetic technologies, clinical trials and tissue donation. Much of his research has been carried out in South Asia as well as in the UK. He is a former holder of a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Fellowship.

Professor Chris Womack

Principal Clinical Histopathologist, AstraZeneca, and Honorary Professor in the School of Cancer and Enabling Sciences, University of Manchester.

Chris Womack is a clinical and biobanking histopathologist who worked as a consultant in the NHS for 20 years. He then moved to AstraZeneca Oncology Translational Research in Cheshire where he has responsibility for human sample governance and research programmes to further the understanding of oncology biomarkers in human tissue samples in relation to the development of anticancer treatments. He is also pathologist to the Manchester Cancer Research Centre Biobank.