Prof. Wolf Leads Conference on Human Subjects Oversight

Professor Susan Wolf led a conference on new approaches to oversight of human subjects research in the cutting-edge field of nanomedicine. The conference, entitled "Nanodiagnostics and Nanotherapeutics: Building Research Ethics & Oversight," grew out of a two-year project supported by the National Human Genome Institute at the National Institutes of Health. Wolf is Principal Investigator on this project, and Co-Investigators are Professors Ralph Hall of the University of Minnesota Law School, Jeff McCullough of the University of Minnesota, and Jeff Kahn of Johns Hopkins University. Conference speakers included top federal officials such as Jerry Menikoff, Director of the Office of Human Research Protections at DHHS; Mihail Roco, Senior Advisor for Nanotechnology at the National Science Foundation; and Warren Lux, Director of the Program in Research Ethics at the Environmental Protection Agency. For more on the conference, including video, visit http://www.lifesci.consortium.umn.edu. Nature News also posted a story entitled "Draft Guidelines for Nanomedicine Unveiled" that covered the conference and NIH-funded project.