Participants

Reiko AOKI, PhD
Professor, Institute of Economic Research
Hitotsubashi University
Professor Aoki earned her Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University. Prior to her current position she was an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Auckland. She has previously taught at the State University of New York, Ben-Gurion University, Tel-Aviv University, and Ohio State University. She was a visiting scholar at University of Tokyo, Institute for Social and Economic Research, and Institute of Intellectual Property in Tokyo. Her field of specialization is theoretical industrial organization. Research topics include innovation, law and economics of intellectual property, comparison of US and Japanese intellectual property systems, and switching cost (number portability) in networks and e-commerce.

Sarah CHAN, BSc(Hons), LLB, MA(Health Care Ethics and Law)
Deputy Director and Research Fellow in Bioethics and Law, Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation
University of Manchester
Sarah Chan is a research fellow at the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation, University of Manchester. Her current research interests include the ethics of new biotechnologies and their impact on humans and our concept of humanity: in particular, genetic manipulation, enhancement and interspecies technology. Prior to this, she conducted work on the EU-CLEMIT project involving the ethics of “creating and redesigning human beings,” including ethics in gene and cell therapy, artificial and assisted reproductive technologies, genetic modification and enhancement; the ethics of stem cell research; and regulation of new technologies and public policy. She has previously worked on regulation of embryo and stem cell research in Australia and public attitudes and education regarding gene technology. She conducted laboratory-based research in molecular biology examining the genetics of male reproduction, and trained as a lawyer specialising in legal theory, health care law and scientific regulation.

Loïc GARÇON, MSc, MBA
Technical Officer Strategy and Networks, World Health Organization
Loïc Garçon is currently Technical Officer of Strategy and Networks at the World Health Organization. Previously he held the role of Program Manager for bilateral organizations and for the World Health Organization dealing in particular with governance issues, the reinforcement of communities and justice. On the occasion of the “Global Forum for Urbanization and Health” held at Kobe from 15 to 17 november 2010, he coordinated the acts of negotiation that brought about the Kobe Call to Action, a document of commitment by political representatives of an international level to a leadership of health. Loic Garcon received a MA in Social Science at the University of Marseilles (France) and a MBA at the University of Geneva (Switzerland). He has a professional experience of over 14 years matured in Africa, Europe and Asia.

Gregory GRAFF, PhD
Associate Professor, Economics of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, in the Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, Colorado State University
Dr. Graff specializes in the economics and public policy of technological innovation and technology-based entrepreneurship and how they can drive sustainable economic development. His research spans four interrelated areas including (1) innovation in agricultural biotechnology and crop genetics; (2) intellectual property in subject matters central to biotechnology, including genes, cells, organisms, and research tools; (3) the role of regulatory approvals as gatekeeper of new technologies and how economic interests drive the politics of regulation; and (4) the policy, economics, and management of collaborative research and technology transfer relationships between public sector and commercial R&D. Prior to joining the faculty at Colorado State, Dr. Graff helped to create PIPRA (the Public Intellectual Property Resource for Agriculture), an international consortium of 50 agricultural research institutes and universities based at the University of California, Davis, and dedicated to managing intellectual property to facilitate the transfer and application of new technologies in global agriculture.
Dr. Graff received his Ph.D. in Agricultural and Resource Economics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 2002, an M.A. in Russian and East European Studies from Ohio State University in 1995, and a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Cornell University in 1992.

Qingli HU, MD
Member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee
Senior Adviser and Emeritus Professor, Ruijin Hospital, Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine
Director of the Advisery Group, Department of Ethics, Legal and Social Issues, Chinese National Human Genome Center at Shanghai
Director of the Independent Ethics Committee, Shanghai Clinical Research Center
Member of the Ethics Committee, Ministry of Health China
Former Assistant Director-General & Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization
Qingli Hu, born in 1932, is a tenured professor at Ruijin Hospital. In 1956 he graduated from the Shanghai First Medical College. Starting from 1957 he successively held the posts of resident doctor, visiting doctor, deputy chief doctor, chief doctor of the Department of Pediatrics, responsible person of the Patients’ Area for Research of Traditional Chinese Medicine Combined with Western Medicine and deputy director of Research Section of Hematology of Ruijin Hospital, consultant of West Pacific Office and Maternity and Child Health and Family Planning of WHO, representative of WHO stationed in the Philippines, and assistant general cadre and deputy general cadre of the Geneva Headquarters of WHO. He is now consultant of the Shanghai Second Medical University, director of the Ethics Committee of Ruijin Hospital, consultant of the Department of Research of Ethical, Law and Social Problems of State South Research Center of Human Genome, director of the Research Center of Taking Care of the Coming Generations of Shanghai, director of the Expert Committee of the Working Council of Taking Care of the Coming Generations of China, Shanghai Branch, member of the Counseling Committee of International Health Experts of Ministry of Public Health, member of the Counseling Committee of Health Reform and Development of Shanghai and guest professor of epidemiology and international health of the Shanghai Medical University and Yale University, U.S. During his more than 20 years of holding a post in WHO he worked for international health, and especially made outstanding contributions to maternity and child health, reproductive health, planned immunity, health ethics and other aspects. After he retired from WHO and returned to Shanghai in 1999 Prof. Qingli Hu continued to help the Pediatrics Association of China prepare and organize the 23rd International Annual Conference and International Maternity and Child Care Conference to be held in Beijing in 2006. Under the leadership of the “China Takes Care of the Coming Generations” Committee, he is preparing the Expert Committee of “Shanghai Takes Care of the Coming Generations” and has been recommended as the director member of the Expert Committee by the Ministry of Public Health, continuously working assiduously for the development of health cause of pediatrics in China and the whole world. Prof. Qingli Hu has made important contributions to the exchanges and coordination between the Shanghai Second Medical University, Ruijin Hospital and international health institutions.

Kazuto KATO, PhD
Associate Professor, Kyoto University
Kazuto Kato is Associate Professor of Science Communication and Bioethics at the Institute for Research in Humanities and Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University. He also holds an adjunct position in the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University. He has a Ph.D. degree in developmental biology from Kyoto University. After finishing his postdoctoral research at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge, he started to work in the interface between bioscience and society. He has been working on science communication as well as ethical and social issues of bioscience. He has been a member of the Ethics and Public Policy Committee of the ISSCR (International Society for Stem Cell Research) since 2009.  In 2010, he was appointed as a member of the Expert Panel on Bioethics of the Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) of the Cabinet Office, Japan.  He also serves as a member of the Informed Consent and Privacy Protection Working Group of the ICGC (International Cancer Genome Consortium).

Shin KAWAMATA, MD, PhD
Senior Scientist and Manager of cell processing centers,
Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation
Kawamata studied physics at the Faculty of Science, Kyoto University, Japan (1975-1980) and medicine at Kobe University, Japan (1984-1990).  He started his career as a medical doctor (hematology) at Kyoto University Hospital and Wakayama Red Cross Hospital (1990-1993). He studied intracellular signal networking in leukemic cells and received his Ph.D. degree from Kyoto University (1998). During his post doctoral period at Systemix Co., Palo Alto USA (1998-2000) and Stanford University (2000-2001), he developed various mouse leukemic models using bone marrow reconstitution techniques using retrovirus. He became a senior scientist in the Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation (FBRI) and manager of cell processing centers in FBRI (2003-present). His major research field is stem cell biology in ES cells/iPS cells and hematopoietic cell differentiation.  His major interest is ethical and regulatory aspects of cell therapy using ES cell/iPS cell-derived cells.

Robert KNELLER, JD, MD, MPH
Professor, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST), University of Tokyo
Robert Kneller (JD Harvard Law School 1980, MD Mayo Medical School 1984, MPH Johns Hopkins 1986) worked in Tianjin Children’s Hospital and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine in 1986 and 1987, before joining the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1988. At NIH, he was a cancer epidemiologist, and was responsible for negotiating collaborative agreements with industry to develop NIH anti-cancer therapies. In 1997, an Abe Fellowship enabled him to study the Japanese system of university-industry cooperation in the University of Tokyo. Since 1998 he has been a professor in the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST). His research focuses on university-industry cooperation, the role of start-ups in innovation, the discovery and commercialization of biomedical technologies, and conflicts of interest associated with academic entrepreneurship. He is the author of Bridging Islands (Oxford), which compares the environments for new high-technology companies in Japan and the U.S., and the role these companies play in innovation. He has completed a study discussing the inventors of the 252 new drugs approved from 1998-2007 by the U.S. FDA, which shows the importance of new companies for the discovery of innovative pharmaceuticals. From August 2010 through July 2011, he was a visiting professor in Stanford Medical School where he explored ways to foster entrepreneurial research partnerships between Japanese and North American researchers and to help Japanese start-ups grow by strengthening their international networks.

Debra JH MATHEWS, PhD, MA
Assistant Director for Science Programs, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Debra JH Mathews, Ph.D., M.A., is the Assistant Director for Science Programs for the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Mathews earned her B.S. in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University and a Ph.D. in genetics from Case Western Reserve University. Concurrent with her Ph.D., she earned a master’s degree in bioethics from Case. She completed a post-doctoral fellowship in genetics at Johns Hopkins, where she continued her work on human genetic variation and human population history. She also completed the Greenwall Fellowship in Bioethics and Health Policy, which is jointly administered by Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities. As a Greenwall Fellow, Dr. Mathews worked at the Genetics and Public Policy Center, researching the views of geneticists on their role(s) in science policy formation and public engagement. In addition, during a three-month internship at the Department of Health and Human Services in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Office of Science and Data Policy, she worked with the Privacy Advocate on issues related to large data systems. As the Assistant Director for Science Programs, Dr. Mathews is responsible for overseeing the Stem Cell Policy and Ethics program (SCoPE) and the Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences, as well as other bench research-related endeavors in the Berman Institute. Her research interests focus on the intersection of science, public policy and society.

Akifumi MATSUYAMA, MD, PhD
Director, Department of Somatic Stem Cell Therapy and Health Policy, Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation
Professor, The Center for Advanced Medical Engineering and Informatics, Osaka University
Akufumi Matsuyama is a Professor at the Center for Advanced Medical Engineering and Informatics at Osaka University. He is also the director of the Department of Somatic Stem Cell Therapy and Healthy Policy at the Institute of Biomedical Research and Innovation Foundation for Biomedical Research and Innovation. He formerly held the position of Deputy Director of the Research and Development Division at the Health Policy Bureau of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare in Japan. Professor Matsuyama earned both his M.D. and Ph.D. at Osaka University. His research focus and expertise are in the areas of regenerative medicine, regulatory science, translational research, and health policy.

Norio NAKATSUJI, DSc
Professor and Director, Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences, Kyoto University
Prof. Nakatsuji received the Doctor of Science in developmental biology from the Kyoto University Graduate School of Science in 1977. He then spent several years in postdoctoral training at Umea University in Sweden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and George Washington University in the U.S., and the MRC Mammalian Development Unit in UK. He returned to Japan to join the Meiji Institute of Health Science in 1984, and became a professor at the National Institute of Genetics in 1991. In 1999, Prof. Nakatsuji moved to the newly reorganized Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyoto University, which is devoted to both basic and applied research in regenerative medicine with an emphasis on stem cell biology and regenerative medicine. His research interests include the developmental biology of mammals focusing on germ cell lineage, nervous systems, and pluripotent stem cells. His laboratory established monkey embryonic stem cell lines in 2000 and worked on the manipulation and utilization of primate ES cells. In 2003, his group succeeded in establishing human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines. Now, they distributes 5 hESC lines (KhES1-5) to other scientists throughout Japan for research purposes. Recently, Prof. Nakatsuji has been focusing his efforts on making the best use of hESC/hiPSC lines for drug discovery and chemical biology, such as research into the screening of chemical compounds for the control of stem cells using genetically modified human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) lines, and reliable and efficient safety tests using cardiomyocytes derived from hPSCs. Since 2007, he has been the founding director of Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS), an institute which aims to advance cross-disciplinary research and technological innovation based on cell biology, chemistry and physics.

Ken OKADA, Ph.D.
Research Associate, Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University
Ken Okada is a research associate at Kyoto University. He is currently working at the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application led by Dr. Shinya Yamanaka at Kyoto University, and is developing a process in order to recruit healthy volunteers to establish an iPS cell bank. Prior to working at Kyoto University, he was a graduate student and gained a Ph.D. from the Division of Stem Cell Therapy, supervised by Dr. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, at the University of Tokyo. His main research interest was identifying tissue stem cells in fetal liver.

Atsushi ONODERA
Deputy Head of Legal Affairs & IP, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA), Kyoto University, Japan
Atsushi Onodera is an intellectual property (IP) specialist for the patent prosecution of the iPSC (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) related technology field. Before joining CiRA, Onodera worked for ten years as the Assistant Manager and Senior Coordinator in patent licensing and litigation at the large electronics companies Sony Corporation and Panasonic Corporation. He has a special background in IP asset management for dealing with IP acquisition, the strategic alliance partnership and the standardization for driving innovative research and product design. He has spent exciting time at the collaborative joint research project for the cutting edge technology at the research center of IBM, USA as the Patent Portfolio Manager. Onodera earned a BE degree at the Graduate School and learned Technology Transfer, IP Management, IP Valuation and IP Consulting at the business academy in Japan.

Alan REGENBERG, MBe
Bioethics Research Manager, Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics
Alan Regenberg is a senior staff member at the Berman Institute, with active involvement in a wide range of research programs and initiatives. These include: The Bioethics Rapid Response Initiative; the Berman Institute Social Media Initiative; the Stem Cell Policy and Ethics (SCOPE) Program; the Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS-Neuroethics); and the Hinxton Group – an international consortium on stem cells, ethics and law. Alan’s research interests are diverse, and have recently focused on issues in global health, stem cell science and neuroethics. Alan completed his undergraduate training in History and Psychology at Rutgers University, and received his Master of Bioethics degree from the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Alan joined the Berman Institute in 2004. Prior to this, he was employed in multiple roles for an interdisciplinary, NIH-funded center researching depression in late life at the University of Pennsylvania.

Alex ROSS
Director of World Health Organization Centre for Health DevelopmentMr. Ross is a public health policy expert trained in the United States at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). Prior to his joining the Centre in Kobe, he served as Director for Partnerships at WHO Headquarters (Geneva) for four years, as well as in senior advisory posts to Assistant Director-Generals for Communicable Diseases and for HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria for four years. During this time, he led development of a WHO partnerships policy, nurtured WHO’s engagement with global health initiatives, non-governmental and private sectors. He also provided inputs to the Pandemic Influenza Preparedness framework negotiations, including strategies for engaging vaccine manufacturers, other private sector entities, and the World Bank/IMF to help provide funds to countries in need. Mr Ross was very involved in developing innovative health financing approaches, such as the Solidarity Tobacco Contribution, and has been part of the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria and UNITAID. Before joining WHO, Mr Ross served in senior positions in the UK Department for International Development between 2001 and 2003, and in several U.S. Government agencies between 1987 and 2001 (USAID Bureau for Africa, U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee, and U.S. General Accounting Office).

Akira SAKAI,  PhD
Vice President, Research and Technology iPS Academia Japan, Inc.
Adjunct Lecturer, Kyoto University
Dr. Sakai earned his B.A. in Biology from the Tokyo University of Education and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Tsukaba University.  He was a visiting fellow in Genetics & Molecular Biology at NIEHS/NIH, as well as a researcher at Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences. In 2000, he became the Director of the Fundamental Research Division at Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Sciences. He is currently Vice President of Research & Technology at iPS Academic Japan, Inc. and an Adjunct Lecturer at Kyoto University.

Shintaro SENGOKU, PhD
Associate Professor & leader of Innovation Management Group of iCeMS, Kyoto University 
Visiting Senior Lecturer, The University of Tokyo
Dr. Sengoku specializes in the management of innovation, R&D, and university-corporate relations. He earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from The University of Tokyo. He is currently an Associate Professor and leader at the Innovation Management Group of The Institute for Integrated Cell-Meterial Sciences (iCeMS) at Kyoto University. The institute’s focus is on two main areas: meso-control and stem cells. Their pioneering work draws from the life sciences, chemistry, materials science, as well as physics, constantly expanding the boundaries of technological innovation. Prior to his current work, Dr. Sengoku has experience as an Associate at McKinsey & Company Inc, Japan, as a Manager at Fast Track Initiative, Inc., and at an independent venture capital firm with an exclusive focus on life sciences and healthcare services. He was also a Senior Lecturer at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo, and most recently, was an Associate Professor at the Innovative Collaboration Center at Kyoto University.

Douglas SIPP
Leader of research unit, Science Policy and Ethics Studies;
Manager, Office of Research Communication
RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology
Doug Sipp is leader of the research unit for Science Policy and Ethics Studies and manager of the Office for Research Communications at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan. His research focuses on ethical, legal and social issues in the clinical translation of stem cell research. He serves as Secretary-Treasurer of the Asia-Pacific Developmental Biology Network, international coordinator for the Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists, and business manager of the International Society of Developmental Biologists and the Stem Cell Network: Asia-Pacific. He is a member of the Task Force on Unproven Stem Cell Treatments, Education Task Force, and Membership and Website Advisory committees for the International Society for Stem cell Research. He is also a member of the International Advisory Board of EuroStemCell.

Koichi SUMIKURA, PhD
Associate Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)
Professor Sumikura earned his Ph.D. in Engineering from the University of Tokyo and was an Assistant Professor there prior to his current position. He specializes in intellectual property policy and science and technology policy. His current research interests include: (1) the patent protection for life science, gene patents, research tool patents, stem cell patents and bioethical viewpoints; (2) the social and economic impact of public research; (3) distribution schemes of intellectual property from academia; and (4) human resources for intellectual property management in academia. He recently published “Patent Strategy of Stem cells” (edited by Koichi Sumikura and Hideki Takeda, published by JIII, 2011, Japanese). He is a board member of the Intellectual Property Association of Japan (IPAJ) and the Japan Society for Science Policy and Research Management (JSSPRM).

David WINICKOFF, JD
Co-Director, Science, Technology, and Society Center, University of California Berkeley Associate Professor of Bioethics and Society, University of California Berkeley 
David Winickoff is Associate Professor of Bioethics and Society at U.C. Berkeley, where he co-directs the Berkeley Science, Technology and Society Center. Trained at Yale (summa cum laude), Harvard Law School, and Cambridge University (Mellon Fellow), he has published over 30 articles in leading bioethics, biomedical, legal and science studies journals such as The New England Journal of Medicine, Trends in Biotechnology, and the Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics. His academic and policy work spans topics of biotechnology law, intellectual property, geoengineering, food safety regimes, and human subjects research. He has authored or co-authored a number of articles on stem cell ethics and intellectual property.

Masayuki YAMATO, Ph.D.
Professor, Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science
Tokyo Women’s Medical University
Masayuki Yamato is a Professor of the Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science at Tokyo Women’s Medical University. He was originally trained with a background in cell biology and biochemistry, but over the past decade, his research interests have been focused on the regeneration of various tissues and organs, such as the cornea, using cell sheets, instead of traditional tissue engineering approaches using cells seeded into biodegradable scaffolds. In particular, his work with both corneal and oral mucosal epithelial cell sheets has already been applied to human patients suffering from ocular surface dysfunctions. Presently, he is engaged in research collaborations with physicians and surgeons from various medical departments, such as ophthalmology, cardiology, gastroenterology, urology, and thoracic surgery; with the aim of taking regenerative medicine using cell sheets from the level of basic laboratory science to clinical applications.

Yoshimi YASHIRO, PhD
Institute of Advanced Biomedical Engineering and Science
Tokyo Women’s Medical University
Yoshimi Yashiro earned his Ph.D. in Medical science from The University of Tokyo. He is originally trained with a background in stem cell biology. He research in graduate school focused on the anti aging system of hematopoietic stem cells under the guidance of Professor Hiromitsu Nakauchi. After graduate school, his research interests have focused on the ethics and social acceptance of stem cell science and regenerative medicine. Presently, his reserch is on the image of the life sciences in science fiction literature and film. His overall aim is to bring about harmony between regenerative medicine and civil society. He has been a member of Ethics Committee of the Japanese Society for Regenerative Medicine since 2010.

Fanyi ZENG, PhD
Structural, Cell and Molecular Biology & Medical and Health Sciences
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Dr. Fanyi Zeng obtained both of her graduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and is currently Professor and Associate Director of Shanghai Institute of Medical Genetics and of Shanghai Stem Cell Institute, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine.  Dr. Zeng is Chief Scientist of a multi-institutional program project supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology’s Basic Science Research Program (“973”). Professor Zeng’s research interests include topics in the fields of human genetics and developmental biology, and she has published in top scientific journals such as Nature, PNAS, Development, Human Mutation, Human Molecular Genetics, and Developmental Biology. Dr. Zeng began her research in the early 1990’s studyin the molecular mechanisms of hemoglobinopathies. She was among the first to identify the splicing defect responsible for one of the most common b-thalassemia disorders in the Chinese population, leading to the first successful treatment of this disease using hydroxyurea and the further development of therapies for the disease. She was the first to apply array-based MLPA technology for the molecular diagnosis of other common Chinese genetic disorders. Professor Zeng has identified important biological and molecular processes that accompany and likely underlie the three major transitions during embryogenesis. Further, she has described RNA expression during zygotic gene activation and identified key genes important for early preimplantation embryo development. Dr. Zeng uses large animal models to study human disease interventions, bioreactor development, and improvement of animal cloning efficiencies. Most notably, Dr. Zeng successfully described the engraftment and differentiation of human hematopoietic stem cells in an in vivo system using a human/goat chimera model. Dr. Zeng recently worked with Dr. Qi Zhou’s group at the Chinese Academy of Science to report the generation of live-born mice from iPS cells through tetraploid complementation, providing the first, definitive evidence that these induced stem cells are truly pluripotent, a characteristic shared with embryonic stem cells. Dr. Zeng actively serves the scientific community as a founding member of the Chinese Society of Stem Cell Biology and is currently the first Secretary General of the Society; she is also the Chinese representative to the Ethics Working Party of the International Stem Cell Forum.

Xiaomei ZHAI, PhD
Professor & Executive Director, Centre for Bioethics,
Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences/Peking Union Medical College
Professor & Director, Department of Social Sciences and the Humanities,
Peking Union Medical College
Xiaomei Zhai was an Edmund Pellegrino Fellow at Georgetown University, a fellow at Harvard School of Public Health in U.S, a visiting Scholar at Lancaster University in UK, Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, Johns Hopkins University, USA, and Erasmus Mundus Bioethics Programme in Europe. She is a member of National Ethics committee of Ministry of Health in China, the vice president of Ethics Committee, a member of the Chinese Society for Genetics, the president of Chinese Society of Bioethics in the society of Chinese Philosophy, Science & Technology, and a member of the Steering committee on the Curricula of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Ministry of Education in China. She is an associate Editor-in-Chief of the journal Chinese Medical Ethics. Her research interests include clinical ethics, research ethics, and public health policy ethics.