| | Welcome to the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society’s webpage! We are delighted that you are visiting our site. Our site is a virtual gateway to the interdisciplinary conversation in bioethics across the Northwestern University campus, and to the resources from the wider discourse of American bioethics. At Northwestern, academic Centers are a way for our faculties across many disciplines to collaborate on research of common interest, and to build deeply collegial conversations at the nexus of several fields. The Center for Bioethics, Science and Society represents such a conversation. We invite you to join a challenging debate about the ethical, social, and political implications that surround the emerging science research at Northwestern. In addition, we welcome your comments on the research that is at the core of our distinctive work: the careful study of justice. We are committed to rigorous scholarship on the question of justice at all levels, from theory to the practice of translational research. We hope that you find our research projects stimulating and we encourage you to join our work. Please notify us of any difficulties you may have in locating information and/or navigating our webpage, we would like our webpage to be as user friendly as possible and the information contained within to be readily accessible to all. Contact us at bioethics@northwestern.edu with general questions and comments. |  |
What is a good act, and what makes it so? As it has evolved today, bioethics is an interdisciplinary field that brings together the pursuits of science and the humanities to create cross-disciplinary analysis, critique, and conversation. Bioethics draws upon the classic questions of moral philosophy, ethics and religious texts and applies them to the current issues we face in research and society as we move into the future. Our mission as the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society is to explore and assess the basic research being carried out at Northwestern University by asking the central questions of bioethics. Such questions allow the widest possible reflection on nationally recognized research in nanotechnology, genomics, genetics, regenerative medicine, end of life care, neonatal and obstetrical dilemmas, and neuroscience. We are committed to public involvement in science, thorough research, dissemination of knowledge, and communication between the academy, and the public. Through our scholarship, we hope to increase the transparency of basic and translational research. At Northwestern University, we are committed to exploring the cultural and social framing of science, to understanding its nature, goal, and meaning, and to understanding the nature of the duty to heal, in all its complexity. The question we ask is not only, what is the impact of science and technology, but also, what sort of future to we wish to create, and what sort of knowledge do we need to responsibly build that future? It is our contention that we need scholars in science, philosophy, religion, humanities, law, and policy to create that future. Some of the central questions we ask are: Today, science at Northwestern is exploring these issues in tangible forms: genomic mapping, bionanotechnological diagnostics, fertility treatment and gamete and cryopreservation of gametes, neurostimulation and imagining. Thus, it is critical that we are engaging these questions now. There are many longstanding and ongoing efforts at Northwestern to study the basic and translational science research, to explore the public policy of science, and to offer science education to the public. Our Center actively researches and engages ethical reflection on the pioneering scholarship being carried out at Northwestern University. It also serves as a physical space for the interdisciplinary dialogue of faculty and students at Northwestern University, a neutral space where researchers and professors from medicine, law, philosophy, religion, chemistry, physics, and engineering can come together and have a conversation that helps the worlds of research, science, and the public understand one another. Through research, the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society examines the driving motivations behind scientific research and facilitates critical conversations between the science community and the public. Our Center is a place where different voices—from the community, the humanities, the political arena—can be a part of the scientific hypothesis.
As the scientific body of knowledge grows and technology emerges at an increasing pace, it is crucial that the academic community and public respond to and guide this process. As the Center for Bioethics, Science and Society seeks to expand its research projects to encompass emerging research agendas and technologies, we need to bring the powerful, critical, and thoughtful intellectual capacities of scholars to our center in the form of faculty, fellows, and students. The strength of a great University resides in its faculty, and an endowed chair is one of the most basic and enduring ways of insuring that strength. The endowed chair will help Northwestern recruit and retain nationally recognized scholars who are also willing to provide leadership in the Center. A University Professorship is an especially attractive opportunity for donors because it is an expression of the highest motives in public/private partnership. The gift will reflect a donor’s commitment to academic excellence, service to the community, and the value of interdisciplinary research and teaching. Donors will have the satisfaction of knowing that their names will be linked in perpetuity to the achievements of the University and its scholars whose work their gift supports. |
