Research Ethics & Ethical, Legal & Social Issues
June 22 - 24, 2026 | Chapel Hill, NC, and online
7th Annual ELSI Congress
The ELSI [Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications] Congress brings together scholars who are dedicated to understanding and shaping the impact of genomic science on society, and to share research, exchange ideas, and influence the future of the field. Registration opened March 9.
Sponsored by the NHGRI
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July 1, 2026 | 2:00 - 3:00 pm | Online
OMB Uniform Guidance Overview (followed by Q & A)
Mike Holland, Vice Chancellor for Science Policy and Research Strategies
School of Public Health faculty, staff, and trainees are invited to register to attend this virtual presentation on the proposed changes to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance (2. CFR 200). SEmail your questions for Q & A in advance to aps109@pitt.edu, Associate Dean for Research, School of Public Health. (Other members of the Pitt research community may be able to attend by seeking to register, or should seek similar webinars being offered in other schools within the University.)
Register via Qualtrics to receive an automated email with calendar invite.
Bioethics, Health Humanities, Health Policy & Clinical Ethics
June 24, 2026 |8:00 - 9:00 am | Parkvale Building, Suite 300, Room 305, and online via Teams
Palliative Care: Working in the Gray
Theresa Brown, RN, PhD, Author of Healing: When a Nurse Becomes a Patient; The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives;and Critical Care: A New Nurse Faces Death, Life, and Everything in Between
Palliative care offers relief, an underrated treatment when curative options are no longer available to patients or will do more harm than good. The problem is, “curative options,” “harm,” and “good” are often in the eye of the beholder, or the physician, when patients with serious illness are unable to get significantly better, but their lives and sometimes function can be maintained with health care interventions. This talk will explore the gray areas of palliative care using clinical examples from the speaker’s work as an oncology and hospice nurse, and research for her next book, 4 Nurses. A key theme will be the role of hope in the care of serious illness. What counts as hope when a patient is dying? Is false hope better than no hope at all, or is that a false dichotomy?
Join via Teams (Passcode: PH75Ps9u)
Co-sponsored by the Institute for Bioethics and Department of Medicine Section on Palliative Care and Medical Ethics
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June 25, 2026 | 1:00 - 2:30 pm | Online
Frontier Issues in Organ Transplantation: New Approaches to Saving Lives & Securing Trust
Organ transplantation is at a crossroads. Too many people die for lack of an organ. Confidence in the U.S. transplant system has been shaken. Three experts will debate what comes next. Will new technologies save lives — perfusion options, xenotransplantation, and prolonged organ cryopreservation? Will reorganizing the transplant system and modernizing the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) solidify public trust? This webinar will explore the future of organ transplantation.
Registration
Sponsored by by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Research Center for Advanced Technologies for the Preservation of Biological Systems (ATP-Bio) (grant no. EEC 1941543)
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November 12 - 14, 2026 | In-person in the Baron-Forness Library at PennWest University in Edinboro, PA
2nd Biennial Conference on Global Bioethics
Sponsored by Duquesne University’s Center for Global Health Ethics and PennWest University’s James F. Drane Bioethics Institute
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March 4 - 7, 2027 | In-person at Wyndham Grand Pittsburgh Downtown (600 Commonwealth Place, Pittsburgh, PA, 15222)
36th Annual Conference of the Association of Practical and Professional Ethics
Sponsored by Pitt Research, this virtual exhibition demonstrates Pitt’s creativity and leadership in public communication of science and technology. With a Pitt Seed grant and science & technology studies scholar Hannah Starr Rogers, curator and science communication expert Elizabeth Pitts (Department of English) created the exhibit of ten artists/artist groups to inquire: What do we want from biotechnologies? Who is biotechnology for? Who decides?
In 2020, Pitt’s Center for Bioethics & Health Law mounted a virtual exhibition of work by Norman Klenicki. A self-taught artist and son of Auschwitz survivors, Klenicki uses his canvases to memorialize Holocaust victims and to channel the energy and emotions he experiences as a person with bipolar disorder. The exhibition is employed in history and Jewish studies courses, as well as the health humanities. With City of Asylum, the Center hosted events exploring connections between music and mental health, and between Klenicki’s visual art and the work of jazz musicians Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. Historian and exhibit curator Bridget Keown (Gender, Sexuality , and Women’s Studies Program) leads a virtual gallery tour.
