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Ethics in Biomedical Research

Section edited by Beatrice Godard and Anita Ho

This section will include manuscripts that consider ethical aspects of research in biological and medical sciences, as well as ethical implications of new technologies, -omics research, and human  enhancement. Manuscripts addressing researcher behavior are also welcome in this section.

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  1. Informed consent, whose goal is to assure that participants enter research voluntarily after disclosure of potential risks and benefits, may be impossible or impractical in emergency research. In low resource ...

    Authors: Dan Kabonge Kaye

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:104

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  2. Clinical genomic professionals are increasingly facing decisions about returning incidental findings (IFs) from genetic research. Although previous studies have shown that research participants are interested ...

    Authors: Isamme AlFayyad, Mohamad Al-Tannir, Amani Abu-Shaheen and Saleh AlGhamdi

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:101

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  4. In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the biomedical research community’s attempt to focus the attention on fighting COVID-19, led to several challenges within the field of research ethics. However, we know ...

    Authors: Alice Faust, Anna Sierawska, Katharina Krüger, Anne Wisgalla, Joerg Hasford and Daniel Strech

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:96

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  5. The EU’s 2006 Paediatric Regulation aims to support authorisation of medicine for children, thus effectively increasing paediatric research. It is ethically imperative to simultaneously establish procedures th...

    Authors: Jana Reetz, Gesine Richter, Christoph Borzikowsky, Christine Glinicke, Stephanie Darabaneanu and Alena Buyx

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:93

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  6. The pursuit of a cure for HIV is a high priority for researchers, funding agencies, governments and people living with HIV (PLWH). To date, over 250 biomedical studies worldwide are or have been related to dis...

    Authors: Karine Dubé, John Kanazawa, Jeff Taylor, Lynda Dee, Nora Jones, Christopher Roebuck, Laurie Sylla, Michael Louella, Jan Kosmyna, David Kelly, Orbit Clanton, David Palm, Danielle M. Campbell, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu, Hursch Patel, Samuel Ndukwe…

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:83

    Content type: Review

    Published on:

  7. The highly sensitive nature of genomic and associated clinical data, coupled with the consent-related vulnerabilities of children together accentuate ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI) concerning data sha...

    Authors: Vasiliki Rahimzadeh, Gillian Bartlett and Bartha Maria Knoppers

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:71

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  9. In this article, we address questions regarding how people consider what they do or do not consent to and the reasons why. This article presents the findings of a citizen forum study conducted by the Universit...

    Authors: Minerva C. Rivas Velarde, Petros Tsantoulis, Claudine Burton-Jeangros, Monica Aceti, Pierre Chappuis and Samia Hurst-Majno

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:62

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  10. Research with cerebral organoids is beginning to make significant progress in understanding the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Brain organoid models can be grown from the cells of donors with ASD....

    Authors: Andrew J. Barnhart and Kris Dierickx

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:61

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  11. Ethics review is the process of assessing the ethics of research involving humans. The Ethics Review Committee (ERC) is the key oversight mechanism designated to ensure ethics review. Whether or not this gover...

    Authors: Agata Ferretti, Marcello Ienca, Mark Sheehan, Alessandro Blasimme, Edward S. Dove, Bobbie Farsides, Phoebe Friesen, Jeff Kahn, Walter Karlen, Peter Kleist, S. Matthew Liao, Camille Nebeker, Gabrielle Samuel, Mahsa Shabani, Minerva Rivas Velarde and Effy Vayena

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:51

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  12. The areas of Research Ethics (RE) and Research Integrity (RI) are rapidly evolving. Cases of research misconduct, other transgressions related to RE and RI, and forms of ethically questionable behaviors have b...

    Authors: Anna Catharina Vieira Armond, Bert Gordijn, Jonathan Lewis, Mohammad Hosseini, János Kristóf Bodnár, Soren Holm and Péter Kakuk

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:50

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  13. Efforts to build research capacity and capability in low and middle income countries (LMIC) has progressed over the last three decades, yet it confronts many challenges including issues with communicating or e...

    Authors: Rakhshi Memon, Muqaddas Asif, Ameer B. Khoso, Sehrish Tofique, Tayyaba Kiran, Nasim Chaudhry, Nusrat Husain and Sarah J. L. Edwards

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:47

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  15. Little is known about volunteers from Northern research settings who participate in vaccine trials of highly infectious diseases with no approved treatments. This article explores the motivations of HIV immuno...

    Authors: Pierre-Marie David, Benjamin Mathiot, Oumy Thiongane and Janice E. Graham

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:42

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

    The Correction to this article has been published in BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:69

  16. The proper and ethical inclusion of PWLHIV and their young children in research is paramount to ensure valid evidence is generated to optimize treatment and care. Little empirical data exists to inform ethical...

    Authors: Catherine G. Raciti, Leslie A. Enane, Katherine R. MacDonald, Elizabeth C. Whipple, Mary A. Ott and Megan S. McHenry

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:38

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  17. When including participants with dementia in research, various ethical issues arise. At present, there are only a few existing dementia-specific research guidelines (Committee for Medicinal Products for Human ...

    Authors: Tim G. Götzelmann, Daniel Strech and Hannes Kahrass

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:32

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  19. Immense volumes of personal health information (PHI) are required to realize the anticipated benefits of artificial intelligence in clinical medicine. To maintain public trust in medical research, consent poli...

    Authors: Sarah Tosoni, Indu Voruganti, Katherine Lajkosz, Flavio Habal, Patricia Murphy, Rebecca K. S. Wong, Donald Willison, Carl Virtanen, Ann Heesters and Fei-Fei Liu

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:29

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  21. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented extraordinary challenges to worldwide healthcare systems, however, prevalence remains low in some countries. While the challenges of conducting research in high-prevalence c...

    Authors: Tony Skapetis, Constance Law and Rohan Rodricks

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:22

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  22. In the context of translational research, researchers have increasingly been using biological samples and data in fundamental research phases. To explore informed consent practices, we conducted a retrospectiv...

    Authors: Elise Jacquier, Pierre Laurent-Puig, Cécile Badoual, Anita Burgun and Marie-France Mamzer

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:21

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  23. Providing understandable information to patients is necessary to achieve the aims of the Informed Consent process: respecting and promoting patients’ autonomy and protecting patients from harm. In recent decad...

    Authors: Francesco Gesualdo, Margherita Daverio, Laura Palazzani, Dimitris Dimitriou, Javier Diez-Domingo, Jaime Fons-Martinez, Sally Jackson, Pascal Vignally, Caterina Rizzo and Alberto Eugenio Tozzi

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:18

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  25. Informed consent is a universally accepted precondition for scientific researches involving human participants. However, various factors influence the process of obtaining authentic informed consent, and resea...

    Authors: Tesfalem T. Tessema, Andamlak G. Alamdo, Eyoel B. Mekonnen, Fanna A. Debele, Juhar A. Bamud, Teklu G. Abessa and Tefera Belachew Lema

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:10

    Content type: Research article

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  26. Consent for data research in acute and critical care is complex as patients become at least temporarily incapacitated or die. Existing guidelines and regulations in the European Union are of limited help and t...

    Authors: Marieke A. R. Bak, Rens Veeken, Marieke T. Blom, Hanno L. Tan and Dick L. Willems

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2021 22:7

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  28. With growth of genomics research in Africa, concern has arisen about comprehension and adequacy of informed consent given the highly technical terms used in this field. We therefore decided to study whether th...

    Authors: Rasheed O. Taiwo, John Ipadeola, Temilola Yusuf, Faith Fagbohunlu, Gbemisola Jenfa, Sally N. Adebamowo and Clement A. Adebamowo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:124

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  29. Informed consent is an important factor in a child’s moral structure from which different types of doctor–patient relationships arise. Children’s autonomy is currently under discussion in terms of their decent...

    Authors: Anderson Díaz-Pérez, Elkin Navarro Quiroz and Dilia Esther Aparicio Marenco

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:122

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  30. A key ethical question in genomics research relates to whether individual genetic research results should be disclosed to research participants and if so, which results are to be disclosed, by whom and when. W...

    Authors: Dimpho Ralefala, Mary Kasule, Ambroise Wonkam, Mogomotsi Matshaba and Jantina de Vries

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:112

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  32. In the EU, clinical assessors, rapporteurs and the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use are obliged to assess the ethical aspects of a clinical development program and include major ethical flaws in ...

    Authors: Rosemarie D. L. C. Bernabe, Ghislaine J. M. W. van Thiel, Nancy S. Breekveldt, Christine C. Gispen and Johannes J. M. van Delden

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:103

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  33. Biomedical and ethnographic studies among indigenous people are common practice in health and geographical research. Prior health research misconduct has been documented, particularly when obtaining genetic ma...

    Authors: Esteban Ortiz-Prado, Katherine Simbaña-Rivera, Lenin Gómez-Barreno, Leonardo Tamariz, Alex Lister, Juan Carlos Baca, Alegria Norris and Lila Adana-Diaz

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:100

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  34. Informed consent is often cited as the “cornerstone” of research ethics. Its intent is that participants enter research voluntarily, with an understanding of what their participation entails. Despite agreement...

    Authors: Antonia Xu, Melissa Therese Baysari, Sophie Lena Stocker, Liang Joo Leow, Richard Osborne Day and Jane Ellen Carland

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:93

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  35. While community engagement is increasingly promoted in global health research to improve ethical research practice, it can sometimes coerce participation and thereby compromise ethical research. This paper see...

    Authors: Deborah Nyirenda, Salla Sariola, Patricia Kingori, Bertie Squire, Chiwoza Bandawe, Michael Parker and Nicola Desmond

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:90

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  37. A biobank is a structure which collects and manages biological samples and their associated data. The collected samples will then be made available for various uses. The sharing of those samples raised ethical...

    Authors: Ambroise Kouamé Kintossou, Mathias Kouamé N’dri, Marcelle Money, Souleymane Cissé, Simini Doumbia, Man-Koumba Soumahoro, Amadou Founzégué Coulibaly, Joseph Allico Djaman and Mireille Dosso

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:88

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  38. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats-associated (CRISPR-Cas) technology may allow for efficient and highly targeted gene editing in single-cell embryos. This possibility brings human germl...

    Authors: Sebastian Schleidgen, Hans-Georg Dederer, Susan Sgodda, Stefan Cravcisin, Luca Lüneburg, Tobias Cantz and Thomas Heinemann

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:87

    Content type: Debate

    Published on:

  39. Scientific misconduct is a prevalent phenomenon with many undesirable consequences. In Iran, no original research have been done about scientific fraud. So, this study aimed at describing a challenging researc...

    Authors: Homayoun Sadeghi-Bazargani, Leila Nikniaz and Hamid Reza Yousefi Nodeh

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:78

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  40. Few studies have examined factors associated with willingness of people living with HIV (PLHIV) to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the factors associated with pa...

    Authors: Deborah Ekusai Sebatta, Godfrey Siu, Henry W. Nabeta, Godwin Anguzu, Stephen Walimbwa, Mohammed Lamorde, Badru Bukenya and Andrew Kambugu

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:77

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  42. Biobanks provide an important foundation for genomic and personalised medicine. In order to enhance their scientific power and scope, they are increasingly becoming part of national or international networks. ...

    Authors: Lisa Dive, Christine Critchley, Margaret Otlowski, Paul Mason, Miriam Wiersma, Edwina Light, Cameron Stewart, Ian Kerridge and Wendy Lipworth

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:73

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  43. Patient skepticism concerning medical innovations can have major consequences for current public health and may threaten future progress, which greatly relies on clinical research.

    Authors: Laurie Pahus, Carey Meredith Suehs, Laurence Halimi, Arnaud Bourdin, Pascal Chanez, Dany Jaffuel, Julie Marciano, Anne-Sophie Gamez, Isabelle Vachier and Nicolas Molinari

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:72

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  44. Public awareness and engagement are among the main prerequisites for protecting the rights of research participants and for successful and sustainable functioning of research biobanks. The aim of our study was...

    Authors: S. Mezinska, J. Kaleja, I. Mileiko, D. Santare, V. Rovite and L. Tzivian

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:65

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  45. The discovery of biomarkers of ageing has led to the development of predictors of impending natural death and has paved the way for personalised estimation of the risk of death in the general population. This ...

    Authors: Marie Gaille, Marco Araneda, Clément Dubost, Clémence Guillermain, Sarah Kaakai, Elise Ricadat, Nicolas Todd and Michael Rera

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:64

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  46. Large-scale, centralized data repositories are playing a critical and unprecedented role in fostering innovative health research, leading to new opportunities as well as dilemmas for the medical sciences. Unco...

    Authors: R. Broekstra, E. L. M. Maeckelberghe, J. L. Aris-Meijer, R. P. Stolk and S. Otten

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:62

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  47. There is growing interest in the collection, storage and reuse of biological samples for future research. Storage and future use of biological samples raise ethical concerns and questions about approaches that...

    Authors: Limbanazo Matandika, Ruby Tionenji Ngóngóla, Khama Mita, Lucinda Manda-Taylor, Kate Gooding, Daniel Mwale, Francis Masiye and Joseph Mfutso-Bengo

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:61

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  48. Knowledge and attitude towards organ donation are critical factors influencing organ donation rate. We aimed to assess the knowledge and attitude towards organ donation in adolescents in Austria and Switzerland.

    Authors: Vanessa Stadlbauer, Christoph Zink, Paul Likar and Michael Zink

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:57

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  49. Research codes of conduct offer guidance to researchers with respect to which values should be realized in research practices, how these values are to be realized, and what the respective responsibilities of t...

    Authors: Govert Valkenburg, Guus Dix, Joeri Tijdink and Sarah de Rijcke

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:56

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

  50. Low literacy of study participants in Sub - Saharan Africa has been associated with poor comprehension during the consenting process in research participation. The concerns in comprehension are far greater whe...

    Authors: Daima Bukini, Columba Mbekenga, Siana Nkya, Lisa Purvis, Sheryl McCurdy, Michael Parker and Julie Makani

    Citation: BMC Medical Ethics 2020 21:48

    Content type: Research article

    Published on:

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BMC Medical Ethics

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