Research Projects

The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is preparing to address some critical ethical issues that are likely to arise during a severe influenza pandemic. MDH has contracted with the Minnesota Center for Health Care Ethics (MCHCE) and the University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics to produce a set of ethical procedures for allocating medications, vaccines, protective equipment, and other health care and medical items that may be in short supply in a pandemic. Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH and Debra DeBruin, PhD will lead the Center for Bioethics’ work on this project. Other Center faculty participants include Joan Liaschenko, RN, PhD, FAAN, Mary Faith Marshall, PhD, Steven Miles, MD, Carol Tauer, PhD, and Susan Wolf, JD.

Principal Investigator Carl Elliott, MD, PhD was awarded grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Library of Medicine (NLM) Grant for Scholarly Workings in Biomedicine and Health; and from the University of Minnesota Graduate School for research on ethics and pharmaceutical marketing.

The University of Minnesota Center for Bioethics, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota Libraries, received funding from the Council on Library and Information Resources through a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to plan for a new program called EthicShare. Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, is principal investigator.

While focusing much energy on providing good end-of-life (EOL) care, the American health care system has ignored a specific population made up of those who die without loved ones by their sides, regular medical care, or safe and stable housing. Therefore, we know little about the concerns of those less fortunate. With funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Drs. John Song, MD, MPH, MAT, Edward Ratner, MD, and Dianne Bartels PHD, RN, MA, have conducted research showing that people who are homeless have unique concerns regarding care as they near the end of their lives. This team of investigators is developing approaches to implement and evaluate interventions to address these concerns.

There is heightened optimism and attention on the safety and scientific merit of gene therapy studies. Rather than sensationalizing individual cases, institutions, or principal investigators for violating integrity when clinical practices go awry, it should be possible to discover how to prevent unintended mishaps. The researchers, principal investigator, Gwenievere Anderson, PhD, School of Nursing, San Diego State University and Debra DeBruin, PhD, co-investigator were funded by the National Institutes if Health (NIH), National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to elucidate in great detail the real-world, taken-for-granted, day-to-day operations and decisions that bear on gene therapy clinical trials and regulatory paper work.

Principal investigator Susan M. Wolf, JD, University of Minnesota's Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences, in collaboration with co-investigators Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, Center for Bioethics; Frances Lawrenz, Department of Educational Psychology; and Charles Nelson, Children's Hospital, Harvard University and a working group of prominent national scholars, were awarded a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) to examine how researchers should handle incidental findings identified during research.

Maryam Valapour, MD has received a $750,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study living-donor lung transplantation. Valapour, Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Pulmonary and Critical Care division and faculty member of the University’s Center for Bioethics, will analyze the ethical and policy issues surrounding living donor lung transplants.

This conference, held in June 2002, was a national gathering of scholars, community members, and religious leaders in a dialogue on the importance and implications of using technologies and genealogical methods to reconstruct an African identity.

Center for Bioethics director Dr. Jeffrey Kahn has contributed to a CNN.com special on the mapping of the human genome project. Dr. Kahn provides an analysis to ethical issues surrounding this historic scientific achievement in the CNN.com special.

The Center was awarded a grant from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NIH) in 2000 for a project entitled "Genetic Testing and the Future of Disability Insurance: Ethics, Law & Policy," with Jeffrey Kahn acting as principal investigator and Susan M. Wolf as co-investigator.

The Genetics and Identity Project explores the ways in which research on genetic variation may affect concepts of ethnic, racial and familial identity. It examines how individuals and groups will respond to potential challenges to, or validations of, their inclusion in a continuum of social, cultural and political ties.

Debra DeBruin, PhD, project director, and Jeffrey Kahn, PhD, MPH, were part of a working group of researchers from across the country to investigate effective strategies for teaching the responsible conduct of clinical research. This collaborative project with the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities was funded by the U.S. Office of Research Integrity of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Association of American Medical Colleges.