Christoph Rehmann-Sutter

Professor of Theory and Ethics in the Biosciences

University of Lübeck

Position in Extended Committee - Ethical Input

Christoph Rehmann-Sutter is a philosopher, Professor of Theory and Ethics in the Biosciences at the University of Lübeck in Germany and currently also Visiting Professor at King’s College in London. Born in 1959 he obtained a first training in molecular biology with a Diploma from the Biocenter at University of Basel in 1984, then a second full training in philosophy and sociology with a doctoral degree at the Technical University of Darmstadt 1995. 1997-1998 he joined the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management ESPM of the University of California at Berkeley as a Research Fellow. 1996-2009 he was Head of the Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences at the University of Basel in Switzerland. 2001-2009 he was Chair of the Swiss National Advisory Commission on Biomedical Ethics, elected by the Swiss Government, advising parliament and government.

As a member of different Research Ethics Committees, as a teacher and as a bioethics researcher he is interested in different topics of the ethics of biomecial research. With his group he is developing a phenomenological and hermeneutic approach to bioethics, integrating qualitative social research methodology. Current projects cover genomics (research about genetic risk factors of Crohn’s disease and heart attack), stem cell medicine (donation of bone marrow stem cells to siblings, and the well-being of the children involved), and end-of-life decisions (wishes to die of patients in palliative care).

His work is widely published, in more than 200 scholarly articles. 2005 he published the book Zwischen den Molekülen. Beiträge zur Philosophie der Genetik (Francke) In 2007 he published (together with Eva M. Neumann-Held) an edited collection Genes in Development. Re-Reading the Molecular Paradigm (Duke University Press); in 2009 (together with Hansjakob Müller) Disclosure Dilemmas. Ethics of Genetic Prognosis After the ‚Right to Know / Not to Know’ Debate (Ashgate), and 2014 (with Miriam Eilers and Katrin Grüber) The Human Enhancement Debate and Disability. New Bodies for a Better Life (Palgrave Macmillan), 2015 appeared an edited collection on wish-to-die research: \"The Patient\'s Wish to Die. Research, Ethics, Palliative Care\" (edited together with Heike Gudat and Kathrin Ohnsorge) at Oxford University Press.

Institut für Medizingeschichte und Wissenschaftsforschung
Universität zu Lübeck
Königstraße 42
Lübeck
D-23552
Germany

Website www.imgwf.uni-luebeck.de