 | Tereza Hendl Dr, Postdoctoral Research Fellow - Sydney Health Ethics |
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02.08.2018-28.09.2018
Responsible innovation with autologous adult stem cells: a global perspective
This project will achieve five objectives:
1. Explore major ethical and legal/regulatory challenges involved in AASC interventions, based on existing scholarship and empirical data from my Australian study.
2. Refine the conceptualization of innovation in terms of responsible innovation in order to better appreciate the vulnerability of patients seeking AASC interventions.
3. Produce a model of responsible innovation, including a set of criteria that will foster an ethical and socially sustainable innovation with AASCs in a transnational context. Being located near Geneva will provide me with the opportunity to consult with policymakers from the Public Health, Innovation and Intellectual Property (PHI) Team, such as Dr Suzanne Hill, Director of Essential Medicines and Health Products, and Dr Marie-Paule Kieny, Assistant Director-General at Health Systems and Innovation. The PHI Team is responsible for promoting innovation in the “discovery, development, production and delivery of essential health technologies”, which makes it the appropriate working group to consult regarding criteria for responsible innovation in a transnational context and receive feedback on my research from experts on global aspects of innovation.
4. Inform deliberations concerning how innovative AASC interventions should be regulated. The model of responsible innovation will guide policy makers in designing regulatory frameworks for AASC interventions.
5. Expand my professional networks. The Brocher Residency will provide me with an invaluable opportunity to discuss my work with renowned scholars and help me translate my empirical research into ethical analysis that will inform policy. The knowledge and networks I will build during my stay will help me position myself as a leading scholar in bioethics conducting cutting edge research in emerging biomedical technologies.
Dr Hendl is a philosopher and bioethicist. Her research interests lie at the intersection of the epistemology, ethics and regulation of emerging technologies. Tereza Hendl is a Postdoctoral Researcher on the project “META – mHealth: Ethical, legal and societal aspects in the technological age.” This project is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and investigates mobile health technologies from an individual, population and global perspective. She is interested in debates about the democratizing potential of mHealth as well as interrogations of these technologies as a mode of reinforcing a particular self, that of the autonomous consumer within neoliberal healthcare systems. Her research currently explores epistemological, ethical and social aspects of fertility tracking mobile applications and the underlying values and social norms they carry. She is particularly concerned with the ways these ontological norms manifest in algorithms and the effects of algorithmic bias on human lives.
Expertise
Dr Hendl holds a PhD in Philosophy from Macquarie University, Australia. Her dissertation explored the ethics of sex selection for social reasons. This project used an empirical methodology, interviewing Australian women who have selected or desired to select their child’s chromosomal sex based on gender preference. She has worked as a Research Associate at the University of Sydney on an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project investigating how young people with impairment resist ableism in their transition to adulthood (2015-2016). She has conducted research as a Postdoctoral Researcher at Sydney Health Ethics on the ARC Linkage Project “Regulating autologous stem cell therapies in Australia” (2016 - 2017). This interdisciplinary project promoted ethical and socially responsible innovation with stem cells. In 2017-2018 she has continued research on the Linkage Project as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne. She has contributed to public reviews of Australian policy on the use of prenatal genetic technology for sex selection as well as the use of tissue and cellular health products. She has appeared in a wide range of media to participate in public debates about health technologies and ensure that her research contributes to society. For example, in 2015 she delivered a TEDxMacquarie University talk Challenging Gender Selection to raise awareness about the ethical implications of sex selection for social reasons.
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