#EBW24 previews: State-of-the-art speaker for Stakeholders in the spotlight: Ethical, social and legal topics in biobanking

We are pleased to confirm the state-of-the-art speaker for the panel session: ‘Stakeholders in the spotlight: Ethical, social and legal topics in biobanking – friend or foe’. Assoc. Prof. Signe Mežinska from University of Latvia will be leading this session and we profile her biography here. The session takes place on Thursday 16 May 2024 as part of the EBW24 programme.

Assoc. Prof. Signe Mežinska

Assoc. Prof. Signe Mežinska, University of Latvia (ORCID: 0000-0002-3190-100X) is a bioethicist and sociologist by training. She holds MSc in Bioethics and Dr.sc.soc. in Sociology of Health and Illness. Her scientific interests include biomedical research ethics, ethics of biobanking and biotechnologies, reproductive ethics and rational use of medicines. S.Mežinska has been teaching Medical Ethics, Bioethics and Sociology of Health and Illness for more than 20 years. She has been a member of UNESCO International Bioethics Committee since 2016 (Vice-Chair 2017-2021), is a member of Council of Europe CDBIO (since 2023), member of BBMRI-ERIC ELSI network, as well as a research ethics expert for European Commission and several national bodies and research ethics committees in Latvia. She also has served as a research ethics trainer in several international training programs organized by UNESCO and WHO. She has been a grant holder in the project “Ethically and socially responsible governance of research biobanks in Latvia: analysis of opinions of public, donors and researchers” (2018-2021) funded by the Latvian Council of Science, was/is WP lead in the Horizon Europe projects ROSiE, FAMILY and BEYOND, and has been/is involved as a researcher and expert in Horizon Europe projects VIRT2UE, B1MG and as a Management Committee member for several COST actions.