Glenn Edwards McGee, PhD, John B. Francis Chair in Bioethics
The portfolio of work in bioethics by Glenn E. McGee, PhD spans the globe and covers a broad spectrum of ethical issues in health and healthcare.
Dr. McGee is a pioneer of a theoretical approach to bioethics based on American pragmatism, and a number of novel approaches to new and perennial problems in medicine and the health sciences. He describes his task this way: to show the connections between our moral lives, medicine and the biomedical sciences.
Dr. McGee’s work has included hundreds of papers and essays in peer-reviewed journals, law reviews, and other scholarly publications and books. His work is often reprinted in textbooks, and his speeches have been printed in the Representative American Speeches volumes.
In addition to his role as holder of the John B. Francis Chair in Bioethics , Dr. McGee is the founding editor of bioethics’ leading journal, The American Journal of Bioethics (AJOB), and editor in chief of its entire family of journals, including the new AJOB Neuroscience and AJOB Primary Research.
Dr. McGee has written in many areas of bioethics, most recently on ethical issues in autism (link: May 8, 2009 talk on ethics and autism given at the Center for Practical Bioethics).
A number of Dr. McGee’s articles have had significant influence on the field of bioethics, including work in the areas of ethical issues in emergency research, compensation of research subjects, models for parenting and enhancement, a pragmatic theory of bioethics, the patenting and sale of biological materials, ethical issues in tissue and gene banks, and ethical issues in stem cell research.
Dr. McGee has authored two books, The Perfect Baby: Parenting in the New World of Cloning and Genetics (2d. ed.), and Beyond Genetics: The User’s Guide to DNA, and edited three books, as well as The Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics’ Bioethics section, and more than 35 volumes as editor of The MIT Press’ book series Basic Bioethics. His most recent book is tentatively entitled Think Different: Autism and Bioethics.
Dr. McGee is a sought after speaker, delivering more than 80 named or endowed lectureships around the world, along with hundreds of major lectures. He has testified before US House and Senate committees and state legislatures on measures involving stem cell research and cloning. He also co-authored the text that became bills or stem cell legislation in four states and cloning legislation in seven states.
Dr. McGee appears frequently in the news media, including “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio, PBS Frontline, The Today Show, Oprah, Anderson Cooper 360, Good Morning America, 60 Minutes, and 20/20. He has written bioethics columns for The Scientist, Hearst News Service; New York Times News Service, and MSNBC Online.
Dr. McGee created the nation’s first program devoted to Federalism, states and bioethics, with the Rockefeller Institute. He serves on and was recently honored for distinguished service by the FDA Panel on Molecular and Genetic Devices, charged with evaluating all genetic tests submitted to that body, and the equivalent body in New York State.
Dr. McGee coordinated research for the American Association for the Advancement of Science workshop on the regulation of human cloning. He was the American external evaluator of all genetics and policy for the United Kingdom in 2007. He served on two National Human Genome Research Institute ELSI working groups, two working groups of the US Centers for Disease Control, and as US reviewer for national funding for ethics in genome sciences in Canada.
Dr. McGee, a native Texan, graduated from Baylor in 1990, and received his MA and Ph.D. from Vanderbilt in 2004, then completing a post-doctoral fellowship in genetics funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute of NIH. In 2000 Baylor named him outstanding young alumnus, and in 2008 one of the “top 150 graduates of all time.”
