August 21, 2012, by Emma Thorne

Fellowship of Society of Biology for Visiting Professor Ben Mepham

Visiting Professor of Bioethics at Nottingham, Ben Mepham, has been elected a Fellow of the Society of Biology.

The Society is the leading professional body representing the learned societies and other organisations comprising UK biosciences, providing the Government and other policy-makers with authoritative, independent and evidence-based opinion on the full range of life sciences.

Election of Fellows is limited to senior scientists ‘who have made a prominent contribution to the advancement of the biological sciences’.

Professor Mepham was Director of the Centre for Applied Bioethics at The University of Nottingham and, although he retired from the full-time staff in 1997, he continues to lecture on bioethics as an honorary professor.

He also publishes extensively, with one reviewer of his latest textbook Bioethics: An introduction for the biosciences (Oxford University Press) describing it as ‘a prominent landmark for the work of all educators in biology’. He has served on several international committees and the Government’s Biotechnology Commission, and was the first Executive Director of the Food Ethics Council.

Professor Mepham said: “This Fellowship is not only a personal honour, it also represents a significant and welcome development in mainstream scientists’ attitudes towards bioethics, which in the past has been marginalised but is clearly now considered to be an integral part of biology. It is evident that the implications of scientific and technological advances for the future of life on the planet demand an urgent focus on bioethical concerns in a global context.”

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