Profile

Pascal Borry is full professor of bioethics at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Law (University of Leuven, Belgium). His main research activities are concentrated on the ethical, legal and social implications of innovative technologies. He published, among other issues, on topics such as direct-to-consumer genetic testing, public health genomics, biobanking, research on human tissue, genetic testing, preconception screening and neonatal screening, and sport ethics. He has published more than 200 publications in international peer reviewed journals.

He teaches medical ethics to medical students and was program director of the Leuven Master of Bioethics (2016-2024). He is member of the Flemish Commission on neonatal screening (2012-2020), member of the Belgian Consultative Committee on Bioethics (2014-2018, 2019-2024) and expert of the Belgian Superior Health Council (2014-2020). Within the European Society of Human Genetics, he was a member of the Professional and Public Policy Committee (2009-2016) and an elected member of the board (2012-2017). He is a member of the Research Ethics Committee of UZ/KU Leuven (2018-2021, 2022-2025). He was a member of the Ethics Expert Group of the World Anti-Doping Agency (2016-2020) and is currently a member of the WADA Independent Ethics Board (2022-2025). Since 2020, he is chair of the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the University of Leuven.

He has received various prizes including the triennial prize for biomedical ethics ‘Professor Roger Borghgraef’ (2006).  In 2014 he also received the Innovation Prize of the Dutch Association for Community Genetics and Public Health Genomics, and in 2015 the prize of the Dutch Society for Bioethics. In 2015 he also received the Science Communication Award of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and the Arts.  He was a visiting scholar at the Case Western Reserve University, the Université de Montréal, and the VU Medical Center Amsterdam. He is Invited Scholar at the Center for Genomics and Policy of McGill University. 

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