R. Alta Charo, J.D., a nationally known bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison, will deliver the first Flexner Discovery Lecture on Thursday, Sept. 20.
Her talk, entitled “Faster, Safer, Better: Thoughts on Pharmaceutical Development,” will begin at 4 p.m. in 208 Light Hall.
Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin, and a member of the Institute of Medicine.
She is the author of nearly 100 publications on a wide range of health policy issues, from stem cell research to food and drug law.
She was a member of President Barack Obama’s Food and Drug Administration transition team and served as senior policy adviser to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, M.D., from 2009 to 2011.
Charo’s talk is also the Patricia Townsend Meador Lecture in Law, Ethics and Health Care, and is sponsored by the Vanderbilt Center for Biomedical Ethics & Society.
The Flexner Discovery Lecture Series is named for famed American educator Abraham Flexner, whose “Flexner Report” reformed American medical education in the early 20th century.
Since 2006, the Discovery Lectures have featured discussions of high-impact research and policy issues in science and medicine by some of the world’s most eminent scientists and science-watchers.
For a complete schedule of the Flexner Discovery Lecture series and archived video of previous lectures, go to www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/discoveryseries.
