"This is not the usual and increasingly redundant collection of essays. Rather it is a set of almost 70 essays all well informed and many with attitude. Moreover the authors have succeeded in largely avoiding unnecessarily technical language without sacrificing the carefulness and clarity necessary in dealing with complex issues. In short The Penn Center Guide to Bioethics is a lively collection of well informed and interesting essays on an unusually wide spectrum of topics in Bioethics. Both academics and practitioners can benefit from the large set of issues addressed. I would hope to see it on the shelves of all those with an ongoing interest in Bioethics."

--Harold T. Shapiro, PhD
Professor Emeritus
Princeton Former Chair President Council on Bioethics
Princeton University
Woodrow Wilson School

Vardit Ravitsky, PhD,is a faculty member at the Department of Medical Ethics and a senior fellow at the Center for Bioethics, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Previously, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Clinical Bioethics at the NIH and at the Social and Behavioral Research Branch (SBRB) of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI).

Autumn Fiester, PhD is the Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Medical Ethics. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Bioethics. She received her PhD in moral philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and her AM in sociology from Harvard University. Her research interests include animals & bioethics, clinical professionalism, and moral theory.

Arthur L. Caplan is the Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and the Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Prior to coming to Penn in 1994, Caplan taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He was the Associate Director of the Hastings Center from 1984-1987. He is the author or editor of twenty-five books and over 500 papers in refereed journals of medicine, science, philosophy, bioethics and health policy.

Caplan is the recipient of many awards and honors including the McGovern Medal of the American Medical Writers Association, Person of the Year-2001 from USA Today, one of the fifty most influential people in American health care by Modern Health Care magazine and one of the ten most influential people in America in biotechnology by the National Journal. He holds six honorary degrees from colleges and medical schools. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, the NY Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He writes a regular column on bioethics for MSNBC.com and is a frequent guest and commentator on National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, Washington Post, Philadelphia Inquirer and many other media outlets.