Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference 2018
Defining Death: Organ Transplantation and the 50-Year Legacy of the Harvard Report on Brain Death
The 2018 Annual Bioethics Conference explored the legacy of the 1968 report from the Harvard Medical School committee that proposed the concept of “brain death” as a new criterion for determining human death, making possible the procurement of “living” organs from bodies deemed to be “dead.”
The conference explored how this report facilitated the development of organ transplantation, assessed current practices, and examined persistent controversies and challenges to the scientific and philosophical foundations of this concept. Participants considered future strategies for facilitating the ethical procurement of organs for transplantation, and the impact of new technologies—such as gene editing and 3-D printing—that could radically alter the relevance of brain death as a concept necessary for organ procurement.
About the Conference
The Harvard Medical School Annual Bioethics Conference convenes leaders in the field to explore ethical questions and concerns in healthcare. Held each April, this conference facilitates conversations among experts, and supports members of ethics committees, health care professionals, bioethicists, administrators, attorneys, and others who are interested in addressing ethical issues.
The Harvard Annual Bioethics Conference was hosted and organized by the Center for Bioethics at Harvard Medical School and co-sponsored by the Hastings Center and the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.