Ethics and London IDEAS

London IDEAS is developing numerous ethics projects:

Ethics resource centre

A resource centre, containing many books, journal articles and policy documents, is being assembled at London IDEAS' Charing Cross campus. The resource centre will be accessible to all members and affiliates of the London IDEAS Genetics Knowledge Park and a catalogue of resources will be made accessible on the London IDEAS intranet.

A virtual resource centre is also being established, including good links to bioethics resources on the web and fact sheets summarising ethical issues in genetics.

NEW If you have not been exposed to ethical problems in genetics before, you might like to try our Ethics Toolkit which provides a practical introduction to the methods involved in ethical analysis.

London IDEAS affiliates will also be able to obtain research advice about particular topics in bioethics.

Workshop series: Ethical issues in clinical genetics

A series of workshops is being developed to facilitate clinicians, counsellors, researchers and diagnostic technicians becoming aware of ethical issues arising in clinical practice. Participants in the workshops will gain an understanding of some of the common tools used when solving ethical problems.

The first workshop was piloted in June 2003 and two more workshops are planned for this year.

It is envisaged that this program will be expanded to offer services to general practitioners in the greater London area by 2006.

Clinical ethics support service

Health professionals working in genetics may often feel they have to make difficult decisions about problematic cases with little support.

The ethics team at London IDEAS is developing a clinical ethics support service to help ameliorate this difficulty. The service will be launched towards the end of 2003.

As the ethics projects progress, further information and features will be added to this website, including:

• Fact sheets summarising ethical issues over a variety of topics, such as genetic screening and population databases
• Recommended resources, grouped around particular topics, such as stem cell research