For immediate release
Contact: Bob Beard
(434) 982-4490
bobbeard@virginia.edu
UVa’s Moreno Named to Stem Cell Research Panel by National Academies
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., May 2, 2006 -- Jonathan D. Moreno, PhD, director of the Center for Biomedical Ethics at the University of Virginia Health System, has been appointed by the National Academies in Washington, D.C. to a new 14-member committee to monitor and revise guidelines for the conduct of human embryonic stem cell research. The committee will provide updates to the voluntary guidelines on embryonic stem cell research issued last year by the Academies. Moreno co-chaired the panel that debated and wrote these voluntary guidelines.
“I look forward to serving on this important committee, which will monitor and review new scientific developments and changing ethical, legal, and policy issues related to human embryonic stem cell research,” Moreno said.
Trained as a philosopher, Moreno is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. He is a bioethics advisor for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and a faculty affiliate of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. Moreno serves as a Fellow at the Hastings Center and at the Center for American Progress and is a consultant on stem cell ethics to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The National Academies’ Research Council and the Institute of Medicine encourages researchers and others to comment on the usefulness of the 2005 guidelines and whether they need to be updated to reflect new scientific findings, public policies, legal rulings or ethical issues. Comments can be submitted at www.nationalacademies.org/stemcells. More information on the new committee is available on the website, along with a free PDF copy of last year’s guidelines.
Moreno can be contacted for media interviews at (434) 924-8274 or by email at jdm8n@virginia.edu