Ethics of Translational Research

This research focuses on key developments in human embryonic stem rell research and neuroscience as critical instances of the translational interface between research and treatment, between science and medicine, including the use of inter-species embryos; boundaries/overlaps between experimental research/treatment; and non human primate research for neurological treatments. The central ethical question is the acceptability of changing what it means to be human and/or a person, but others include the impact on human/animal rights; the interests of future generations; the interpretation of safety and risk; the relationship between personal beliefs and professional demands/responsibilities; the place of values in patient choice; the shifts in moral landscapes as research progresses.
 
The London & Brighton Translational Ethics Centre  (LABTEC) research programme expands an established, interdisciplinary team who have an outstanding track record of working and publishing together on ethical issues relating to new medical technologies. It builds capacity and adds value in three interlinking domains, by providing research training/academic career development; developing innovative methodological approaches combining normative and empirical ethics; and undertaking substantive work on the ethics of translational research. 

• generate a vibrant, responsive, innovative, and internationally esteemed interdisciplinary biomedical ethics research programme and Centre;
 
• build research capacity and expertise in interdisciplinary biomedical ethics, adding significant value to previous work;
 
• establish and cultivate local, national, and international collaborations and networks;
 
• mutually engage with policy makers, users and publics, and contribute to public debates and the policy process;
 
• make a significant contribution to empirical and normative biomedical ethics (for example through Aims & Methods in Interdisciplinary & Empirical Ethics - AMIE), and to the Wellcome Trust’s profile in this area.

This research builds on the social science research programme of Professor Clare Williams, which explores ethical and clinical issues for staff working with innovative medical technologies.  The research questions and team emerge from this programme of research on empirical ethics, building on and combining all our interests and expertise. Professor Bobbie Farsides has particular expertise in the area of clinical ethics, and has collaborated with Professor Williams on five very successful projects.  Professor Alan Cribb works in the area of applied ethics, particularly the factors changing and shaping ethical positions adopted by health professionals. Professor Rosamund Scott is an ethicist and lawyer who has written extensively on reproductive law and ethics, particularly prenatal screening, the embryo and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD).
 
Our five social scientists are particularly interested in new medical technologies, combining expertise in medical sociology and science studies with policy and media analysis. Professor Steven Wainwright’s research blends medical sociology and science studies and he is particularly interested in the interactions between scientists and clinicians in the field of translational hESC research.  Professor Mike Michael’s research encompasses public understanding of, and engagement with science; sociology of biomedical innovation, particularly hESC; and animals and society, particularly transgenic animals and xenotransplantation.  Professor Brian Salter is a political scientist whose current work focuses on the global politics of new health technologies and the international governance issues surrounding the bioethics and regulatory policies of stem cell research and regenerative medicine.  Professor Clive Seale’s expertise in medical sociology includes research on the sociology of death and dying, cancer, and sociological understanding of media representations of health.
 
Our three scientists/clinicians are at the forefront of clinical, scientific and policy developments in areas including hESC research and interspecies embryos, and they all share an interest in experimental biomedicine and public understanding of the ethical issues arising. Professor Peter Braude is a recognised expert in the clinical, scientific and ethical dimensions of IVF/PGD/hESC research.  Dr Stephen Minger is Director of the KCL Stem Cell Biology Laboratory and he has a particular interest in 'interspecies embryos' and neuroscience.  He contributes to policy and regulatory debates, and is a well known media commentator on the scientific and ethical implications of his work. Professor Chris Shaw is a leading clinician/scientist in MND who is committed to promoting public debate on the ethics of translational neuroscience.

We appointed three Post-Doctoral Studentships in 2009, and we will be advertising four PhD Studentships in 2010 to work on the following areas of our research programme: 
 
1. Shifting science: stakeholder views on inter-species embryos: scientists’ and clinicians’ views on iPS cells (MND), (James Porter, CBAS, KCL)
 
2. Experiments perilous? Scientists/clinicians’ views on experimental neuroscience (PD), (Dr Caragh Brosnan, CBAS, KCL)
 
3. The primacy of primates? Regulating experimental neuroscience (MND & PD), (Dr Alison Harvey, CBAS, KCL)
 
4. The courage to participate? Patients’ views on experimental neuroscience (MND & PD), (TBA, Brighton) 
 
5. Public ethics, social movements? Stakeholders’  views on experimental neuroscience (MND & PD), (TBA, Brighton)
 
6. Experimental neuroscience: use of Deep Brian Stimulation (DBS) to treat children with dystonias, (currently being advertised, closing date 6th April 2010, CBAS)
 
7. Media reporting of experimental neuroscience (MND & PD), (currently being advertised, closing date 6th April 2010, CBAS)
 
We are committed to making LABTEC a vibrant research community where the most junior undergraduate and the most senior professor feel welcome in a place which embodies an ethos of developing academic curiosity, discovering new insights and promoting interdisciplinary collaborations.

This research programme is designed to further Wellcome Trust aims to link bioethics, scientific research, clinical practice and policy. We focus on two inter-related areas which pose profound and ongoing ethical, social, clinical, scientific, legal and regulatory issues: the use of inter-species embryos; and the interface between experimental research and treatments for MND and PD.
 
1. Experimental Science: Inter-Species Embryos
The overarching aim of this theme is to investigate the ethical, clinical, scientific, legal and regulatory landscapes of experimental science relating to inter-species embryos.
 
Key goals
• To investigate the ethical, clinical, social and legal issues stem cell laboratory staff consider when deciding which entities they will work with;
• To analyse conceptual and theoretical models adopted in the philosophical debate concerning the use of inter-species embryos;
• To examine the legal, policy and regulatory debates on inter-species embryos;
• To conduct a media analysis of the ethical debates around inter-species embryos.
 
2. Experimental treatments:
Motor Neurone Disease (MND) & Parkinson’s Disease (PD)
The overarching aim of this theme is to investigate the ethical, clinical, scientific and legal landscapes of experimental medicine for translational research in two contrasting degenerative neurological diseases.
 
Key goals
• To explore patients’, scientists’ and clinicians’ views on the ethical issues raised by participation (or not) in experimental treatment/research;
• To investigate the boundary/overlap between experimental treatment and research in translational medicine;
• To examine views on the different animal models of disease considered necessary prior to human treatment/research in neurological diseases;
• To conduct a legal and regulatory analysis of the ethical debates around animal models and experimental treatment/research.

A programme of workshops, seminars, visiting fellows and conferences will build interdisciplinary research capacity both within and beyond LABTEC, for example:
 
• Bi-monthly seminars to highlight programme findings to a wider network of researchers;
 
• High profile ‘Public Debate Panels’, focusing on a key area of our research, will be hosted at BSMS, chaired by Farsides;
 
• An annual conference will showcase our work and encourage dialogue between those interested in the ethics of translational research, including participants from the academic fields of social science, ethics, law, medicine, biomedical science; a range of user groups; and those involved in policy and regulation;
 
• International & UK Visiting Fellowships to promote links with others working on similar issues;
 
• Methods Workshops will enable us to disseminate our techniques to others, including strategies for successful interdisciplinary working and running Ethics Discussion Groups;

Both the Wellcome Trust and King's College London issued press releases on the 24th June 2008 highlighting the significance of the three Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Strategic Awards:
 
Wellcome Trust Press Release
 
King's College Press Release

We will launch a new MA in Bioethics & Society (starts 2010, subject to approval). This innovative and exciting new MA programme will enable students to combine 'philosophical ethics' modules from the world famous Medical Ethics & Law MA of the Centre of Medical Law & Ethics (CMLE, School of Law) with 'social science and ethics' modules from our renowned Centre for Biomedicine & Society (CBAS, School of Social Science & Public Policy) Medicine, Science & Society MSc. Students will be able to pursue a Dissertation with staff from CMLE and/or CBAS.
 
CBAS Modules
1. Social Science, Bioethics & Biomedicine (Compulsory)
2. Social Science Approaches to Biomedicine
3. Translational Research: Linking Medicine, Science & Society 
4. Science Policy & Society
5. Dissertation
 
CMLE Modules
1. Moral Theory in Medical Ethics (Compulsory)
2. Ethical Issues at the End of Life
3. Ethics of Psychiatry 
4. Reproductive Ethics
5. Justice and the Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources
6. Genetics & Reproduction
7. Dissertation

Williams, C. & Wainwright, S.P. (2010) Sociological reflections on ethics, embryonic stem cells and translational research. In Capps, B.J. & Campbell, A.V. (Eds) Bioethics and the Global Politics of Stem Cell Science: Medical Applications in a Pluralistic World, London: Imperial College Press, and Singapore: World Scientific Publishing (in press).
 
Wainwright, S.P. Williams, C. Michael, M. &.Cribb, A. (2009) Stem cells, translational research and the sociology of science. In Atkinson, P. Glasner, P. & Lock, M. (Eds) Handbook of Genetics & Society: Mapping the New Genomic Era. London: Routledge (in press).
 
Williams, C. (2009) Editorial: Reflections on the ethics of translational research. Clinical Ethics, (in press).

Wainwright, S.P. (2009) Sociological reflections on translational research: embryonic stem cells, diabetes and neuroscience, ESRC Stem Cell Initiative Conference, ‘Beyond Pattison: Challenges to Stem Cell Translation & Policy’, Wellcome Trust, London, (7-8 May)
 
Wainwright, S.P. & Williams, C. (2009) Sociological reflections on stem cell translational research, Department of Health Service Research, Institute of Public Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, (16 March)
 
Wainwright, S.P. (2009) Sociological reflections on the ethics of human embryonic stem cells and translational research, Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, Stanford University, USA, (3 March)
 
Wainwright, S.P. (2009) Sociological reflections on the ethics of human embryonic stem cells and translational research, School of Medicine, University of California San Diego, USA (26 February)
 
Williams. C. & Wainwright, S.P. (2009) Ethical issues in experimental medicine: a social science approach to multidisciplinary research.  Ethics Workshop, MRC Centre for Transplantation, King's College London (29 January)
 
Wainwright, S.P. & Williams, C. (2008) Sociological reflections on the ethics of human embryonic stem cells and translational research, Values, Ethics & Law in Medicine (VELiM), University of Sydney, Australia (15 December)
 
Wainwright, S.P. & Williams, C. (2008) Sociological reflections on ethics, embryonic stem cells and translational research, Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, Singapore, (1 December)

Professor Clare Williams
Director Wellcome Trust London & Brighton Translational Ethics Centre - LABTEC
Director Centre for Biomedicine & Society - CBAS
Professor of Social Science of Biomedicine
School of Social Science & Public Policy
King's College London
Strand Building (6th floor)
Strand
London, WC2R 2LS
 
Tel: 07850 093522
Email: clare.2.williams@kcl.ac.uk