Kanellopoulou, Nadja | United Kingdom

Nadja Kanellopoulou specialises in medical law, intellectual property and bioethics. Her qualifications include a first degree in law (LLB, University of Athens), a higher degree in medical jurisprudence (LLM, University of Edinburgh), a doctorate on medical biotechnology and intellectual property law. Her PhD thesis on ‘Group Rights in Biolaw – A Model Approach’ was pursued at the AHRC Research Centre for Intellectual Property and Technology Law (University of Edinburgh). It examined legal, ethical, social aspects of group involvement in genomic research. It focused on collective control issues (group consent, property, benefit sharing) and proposed a group conditional gift model for the use of human tissue in research.

Nadja is developing postdoctoral research on biotechnology governance case studies from her thesis, with particular interest in the role of groups as research stakeholders and/or innovators. She has previously worked as a research fellow at the ESRC Genomics Forum on several aspects of genomics and health policy (e.g. gene banking, research commercialisation, stem cell research regulation). She is interested in interdisciplinary studies of science, technology and public health, with particular focus on human tissue governance, reproductive technologies, property rights in the body, and politics of expertise in health-related innovation.

As a Research Fellow at the IAS-STS Nadja Kanellopoulou was arwarded with the Ernst-Mach-grant.

Project at IAS-STSGroups and genomics research: novel approaches in biotechnology governance

This project builds on my doctoral work on legal, social, ethical aspects of collective involvement in genomic research. It aims to clarify further the increasing value of particular groups as research participants and facilitators. Human genomic research targets groups such as families, communities and populations defined by common ties or disease. Scientific and social research with such groups fosters a diversity of expectations that remain largely un-chartered and unaddressed. This project draws on problems of representation, sharing and control in the governance of research with groups, to assess the viability of novel equitable frameworks for their protection. The normative need to protect groups in research derives from principles of autonomy and self-determination promoting concepts of shared responsibility and decision-making, as well as principles of justice and fairness in the distribution of benefits from human research. The project has two elements. The first is the critical analysis of the concept of ‘groups’ as participants in genomic research. This concept relies on interdisciplinary understanding of the diverse research context as well as the cultural, economic, ethical circumstances under which particular groups participate in research. In my thesis, I defend that a workable model for the protection of groups as research partners can only be developed with this understanding in mind. The second element of the project focuses on the role of groups as research facilitators; it critically assesses the scope and premise of current mechanisms for shared management, oversight and control of research with groups, in the quest for novel protections. In this analysis, extensive reference is given to the effects of growing commercialisation on the historical, ethical, legal, social status and ‘biovalue’ of the human body and to the ensuing transformations of human biological material in modern biotechnology research.

Selected Publications

Kanellopoulou, N., ‘Advocacy Groups as Research Organisations: Novel Approaches in Research Governance’ in J. Tait, C. Lyall (eds), Limits of Governance, Aldeshot: Ashgate (in press)

Kanellopoulou, N. (guest editor), ‘Patents, Genomics and Commercialisation: Ethical, Legal and Social Concerns about Intellectual Property Policy in Genomics’ (special issue) Genomics, Society and Policy Journal 4:2 (2008) (in press)
 
Kanellopoulou, N., ‘Stem Cells: All Change Please!’ Genomics NETWORK, issue 7 (2008), (available online)

Kanellopoulou, N., ‘Gift or Duty: A Normative Discussion for Participation in Human Genetic Databases’, in G. Arnason, S. Nordal, V. Arnason (eds), Blood and Data: Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of Human Genetic Databases, University of Iceland Press & Centre for Ethics, (2004)

Kanellopoulou, N., ‘Sex Selection: Options for Regulation’, SCRIPT-ed 1:1, (2004) (available online)