Dr. Vardit Ravitsky is Associate Professor at the Bioethics Program, School of Public Health, University of Montreal. She is President of the International Association of Bioethics and Director of Ethics and Health at the Center for Research on Ethics. She is member of the Standing Committee on Ethics of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and of the National Human Genome Research Institute’s (NHGRI) Genomics & Society Working Group. Her research focuses on the ethics of genomics and reproduction and is funded by Canada’s leading funding agencies. She published over 160 articles and commentaries on bioethical issues.
Dr. Ravitsky’s research focuses on the ethics of genomics and reproduction and covers a variety of topics such as: public funding of In-Vitro Fertilization (IVF); the use of surplus frozen embryos; posthumous reproduction; pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD); gamete donation; epigenetics; prenatal testing, in particular the ethical, social and legal aspects of Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing (NIPT); germline and somatic gene editing; and mitochondrial replacement. She holds a BA from the Sorbonne University in Paris, an MA from the University of New Mexico in the US, and a PhD from Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Previously, she was faculty at the Department of Medical Ethics, School of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania. She was also a Senior Policy Advisor at CIHR’s Ethics Office and a GE3LS consultant to Genome Canada (GE3LS = genomics and its ethical, economic, environmental, legal and social implications).