Course Coordinator: I. Zarkadis (Professor), S. Taraviras (Professor)

The aim of the course is the critical understanding of the subject RESEARCH ETHICS – BIOETHICS. Within the framework of the course, postgraduate students are invited to understand the importance of ethical and moral issues raised in the context of research and their handling in everyday medical practice. All contemporary problems related to ethics and morality, especially in the biomedical sciences, are presented in the form of essays/presentations and seminars.
Particular emphasis is given to those bioethical issues that remain open according to the current legal regimes, Directives and international Treaties. At the same time, the course aims to student’s familiarization with the theoretical concepts and tools that will be used to analyze an ethics-bioethics issue.

Course Content

The course content is the analysis of bioethics and ethics concepts in biomedical research and problems arised during the conduct of research, relationships between researchers, as well as from contemporary applications in human reproduction, diagnosis of genetic defects and diseases, organ transplantation, use of experimental animals, biological warfare, etc.

Specifically, all issues of ethics and bioethics in research and medical practice are presented under the prism of the four basic principles:

• The principle of beneficence,
• The principle of non-maleficence,
• The principle of respect for the autonomy of the individual (principle of autonomy),
• The principle of justice.

The laws (of ethics and morality) that apply from all sources (often contradictory), the open issues, the obligations and rights, the individual and social implications are also described.

Finally, the basic principles “autonomy, benefit, non-harm, justice” that must govern every thought, action and result are analyzed.

Educational objectives

The general objectives of the course are to raise the awareness of postgraduate students in:

• the ethics of laboratory organization – quality control procedures.
• the already established rules of ethics in laboratory diagnostics and research carried out today within the framework of Biomedical Sciences.
• the major ethical and legal dilemmas that those involved in the various applications of Biomedical Sciences and in particular in laboratory diagnostics and research are expected to face.