Improving lives of people with dementia; new project; implanted brain devices
Latest News
November 13, 2025
Committing to Making New Medical Technologies Available Globally Hastings Center-Rockefeller University project focuses on early-stage science
Global health depends in part on access to advances in biological science and technology to forestall and treat disease, but there are discrepancies in access across the United States and the world. A new joint project of The Hastings Center for Bioethics and Rockefeller University aims to improve the global availability of new medical technologies by focusing on steps that can be taken by scientists engaged in early-stage research. The project is funded by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Institute for Global Infectious Disease Research at Rockefeller University. Read more.
In the Media How can we improve the lives of people with dementia?
Hastings Center senior research scholar Nancy Berlinger sat down with JAMA Medical News to discuss this question and the major themes of a recent Hastings Center special report, “Living with Dementia: Learning from Cultural Narratives of Aging Societies.” She described how cultural narratives — working assumptions that convey ideas and values — can affect how physicians and others perceive and respond to people living with dementia, in ways that can improve — or undermine — their everyday lives.“Underneath all of bioethics for aging societies is what makes a good life in later life,” she said, “and in this report, we’re saying, well, what makes a good life even if you have dementia, and what would support a good life?” Read the interview and listen to the podcast.
Why Do People Volunteer for Neural Device Research? Latest article in our Neuroscience & Society series
The term “engagement” is a buzzword in research on devices implanted into people’s brains, and it is widely considered a mark of ethical research. But there’s little consensus on the motivations, goals, and best practices for engagement efforts. An article in the Hastings Center Report emphasizes the importance of researchers treating study participants as partners because they are “positioned to make crucial knowledge contributions in the development of implanted neural devices by virtue of their lived experiences of participating in these studies and their experiences living with the disabilities in which these devices seek to intervene.” Read the article, the latest in our Neuroscience & Society series.
Your Gift Can Be Doubled Make your Giving Tuesday donation by December 2
Giving Tuesday is less than a month away, and The Hastings Center for Bioethics needs your support to promote ethics in health, science, and technology and help build a better future! Your Giving Tuesday donation can be DOUBLED! A generous donor will match up to $10,000 in gifts received by midnight on Tuesday, December 2nd! Your support fuels vital ethics research on health AI, reproductive technology, anti-ableism, healthy aging, mental health, and more. Donate, https://www.thehastingscenter.org/giving-tuesday-2025/.
Hastings Fellows News Schwarze elected to the National Academy of Medicine
Margaret “Gretchen” Schwarze was elected to the National Academy of Medicine, which cited “her pioneering work that has transformed how surgeons communicate with patients about major treatment decisions and informed consent for surgery.” Read more.
Testing Embryos: How Far Should We Go? Hastings Center webinar, December 3.
Whose Child Is She/He? The Genetic Gestation Divide. Hastings Center President Vardit Ravitsky will give a talk at the Foundation for Reproductive Medicine conference. December 5.
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