Topic: Arthur Caplan

Arthur L. Caplan PhD, is Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Penn in 1994, Caplan taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He was the Associate Director of the Hastings Center from 1984-1987. Born in Boston, Caplan did his undergraduate work at Brandeis University, and did his graduate work at Columbia University where he received a Ph.D in the history and philosophy of science.

Caplan is the author or editor of twenty-five books and over 500 papers in refereed journals of medicine, science, philosophy, bioethics and health policy.

He has served on a number of national and international committees including as the Chair National Cancer Institute Biobanking Ethics Working Group, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the United Nations on Human Cloning, the Chair of the Advisory Committee to the Department of Health and Human Services on Blood Safety and Availability, a member of the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illnesses, the special advisory committee to the International Olympic Committee on genetics and gene therapy, the ethics committee of the American Society of Gene Therapy, and the special advisory panel to the National Institute of Mental Health on human experimentation on vulnerable subjects. He has consulted with many corporations, not-for-profit organizations and consumer organizations. He is a member of the board of directors of The Keystone Center, the National Center for Policy Research on Women and Families, Octagon, The Franklin Institute, Iron Disorders Foundation and the National Disease Research Interchange. He chaired the advisory committee on bioethics at Glaxo from 2005-8. He is on the food advisory panel for Edelman public relations and co-director of a United Nations/Council of Europe Study on organ trafficking.