(April 13, 2010) President Barack Obama has announced his intent to appoint New College of Florida alumna Dr. Anita Allen, as well as nine others, to the newly-formed Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Allen, who graduated from New College in 1974, is the Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania and is recognized as one of the country’s leading experts on contemporary ethics and privacy.
Regarding the selections, President Obama said, “I am grateful that these impressive individuals have decided to dedicate their talent and experience to this important Commission. I look forward to their recommendations in the coming months and years.”
In addition to her professorships in law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, Allen (photo at right) also serves as deputy dean for academic affairs at the school and is a senior fellow in the bioethics department at Penn’s School of Medicine. A distinguished scholar of privacy law and practical ethics, she is recognized for her work on confidentiality in medicine, genetics and research, racial justice and women’s health. She recently sat on the executive committee of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics and currently serves on the boards of the Maternity Care Coalition and the West Philadelphia Alliance for Children. Allen also served on the original National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and its Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Working Group in the 1990s. She is presently on the board of the Bazelon Center for Mental Health, collaborates with Penn’s Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Mental Health and has written about how American families cope with addiction and mental disorders. In addition to her bachelor’s degree from New College, Allen holds a J.D. from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan.
According to a release from The White House, the Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will advise President Obama on bioethical issues that may emerge from advances in biomedicine and related areas of science and technology. It will work with the goal of identifying and promoting policies and practices that ensure scientific research, health care delivery and technological innovation are conducted in an ethically responsible manner. The candidates selected by the President will join the current chair, Amy Gutmann, and vice-chair, James Wagner, as members on the commission.
In addition to Allen, other members appointed to the Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues by President Obama were the following:
•Lonnie Ali is the wife of Muhammad Ali and an outspoken advocate working to raise awareness of Parkinson’s disease as well as increased funding for research. In December of 2009, she and her husband opened the Lonnie and Muhammad Ali Pavilion, which houses the Muhammad Ali Parkinson’s Center on the campus of Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona.
•Barbara Atkinson is Executive Vice Chancellor of the University of Kansas Medical Center and also concurrently serves as the Executive Dean of the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She has held numerous national positions including Trustee and President of the American Board of Pathology and currently is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Association of Academic Health Centers.
•Nita A. Farahany is an associate professor of law and philosophy at Vanderbilt University, where her research focuses on the legal, philosophical and social issues arising from developments in the biosciences, particularly behavioral genetics and neuroscience. She also is a member of the New York Bar, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and the Society for Neuroethics.
•Alexander G. Garza is the assistant secretary for health affairs and chief medical officer for the Department of Homeland Security. He has had an impressive career in medicine and public health issues in both civilian and military roles, specializing in emergency medicine.
•Christine Grady is currently the acting chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center. Her research focuses on research subject recruitment, incentives, vulnerability and international research ethics. She is also a senior research fellow at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and was elected as a fellow at both the American Academy of Nursing and the Hastings Center.
•Stephen L. Hauser is the Robert A. Fishman Distinguished Professor and chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of California – San Francisco. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Physicians, a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, former president of the American Neurological Association and president of the Medical Staff at UCSF.
•Raju Kucherlapati is the Paul C. Cabot Professor in the Harvard Medical School Department of Genetics and is a professor in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He was the first scientific director of the Harvard Medical School-Partners Healthcare Center for Genetics and Genomics. His research focuses on gene mapping, gene modification and cloning disease genes.
•Nelson Michael is the director of the Division of Retrovirology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and the director, U.S. Military HIV Research program (MHRP). Dr. Michael currently serves on various NIH committees dealing with AIDS research and vaccines.
•Daniel Sulmasy, a Franciscan Friar, holds the Kilbride-Clinton Chair in Medicine and Ethics in the Department of Medicine and Divinity School and is associate director of the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago. He was appointed by Governor Pataki to the New York State Task Force on Life and the Law in 2005.
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