Bioethics

Gareth Jones is Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International) at the University of Otago, New Zealand, New Zealand, where he has been Professor of Anatomy and Structural Biology since 1983. Prior to this he held positions in the University of Western Australia, and University College London. He is a Visiting Fellow at St Edmunds College, Cambridge, and an Adjunct Professor at Liverpool Hope University.In 2004 he was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM) for his contributions to science and education. He holds the degrees of DSc and MD, for his publications in neuroscience and bioethics respectively. He is Deputy Chair of the New Zealand Government's Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology.His current research interests span a number of areas of bioethics, approached from the perspective of a biomedical scientist, with particular interests in embryology and neuroscience. As a result all his bioethical writings are informed by his science, especially as they relate to the dead human body, the uses to which human tissue and human material may be put, including plastination. Core issues include the moral status of the blastocyst, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), policy issues surrounding research using human embryos and the extraction of embryonic stem cells, the concepts of brain birth and brain death, notions of biomedical enhancement, and the interplay of genetic and environmental factors in ethical assessment.