Technical University of Munich
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) leads Work Package 2 (WP2), which focuses on supporting the ethical development and implementation of preventive interventions for childhood obesity through the examination of key Ethical, Legal and Social Implications (ELSI).
TUM integrates ethical considerations throughout the duration of the project by actively participating in WP1 and WP6 meetings, maintaining close collaboration with WP5 on clinical trials, and leading activities at the annual Obelisk meeting to encourage all work packages to reflect on potential positive and negative ELSI aspects of their research. The team has conducted a systematic literature review to identify the range of ethical issues raised by childhood obesity interventions. These findings have been presented at an Obelisk training webinar and will inform the specialist policy panel organised by WP6.
To further explore the perspectives of key stakeholders, TUM is conducting qualitative interviews with clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and parents of children involved in the TAPE clinical trial. Drawing on insights from this research, TUM will develop a set of ethical recommendations to be presented as an ELSI-specific policy brief, providing guidance for future policy and research in childhood obesity prevention.
People
PD Dr. Stuart McLennan
Stuart is the Director of Research at the Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine at the Technical University of Munich. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Philosophy (with a focus on ethics and moral philosophy), a Master's degree in Bioethics and Health Law (with distinction), a PhD in Biomedical Ethics (with Summa Cum Laude), and in December 2020 he received his Habilitation and Venia docendi in Biomedical Ethics from the Medical Faculty of the University of Basel. His research tends to be highly interdisciplinary and practice-oriented, using the empirical bioethics approach that integrates ethical, legal and policy analysis with empirical methods. His general research focus is on ethical and regulatory issues related to learning health systems, in particular data science and AI in healthcare, patient safety and quality improvement, and clinical research. He is also heavily involved in the development of the new interdisciplinary approach of embedded ethics (EE) to integrate ethical considerations into AI development.
Dr. Marthe Smedinga
Marthe holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from the University of Groningen, a Master’s degree in Neuroscience from the University of Amsterdam, a Master’s degree in Philosophy from the Free University in Amsterdam and a PhD degree from the Radboud University in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Her research revolves around ethical challenges relating to the practical implementation of new technologies in the biomedical sector, such as large-scale medical data-sharing, bioprediction of incurable diseases and genetic modification. She combines qualitative and quantitative research with ethical analysis to be able to provide practical ethics advice.
