Bioethics

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Key features

Helps clinicians understand and implement ethical standards when using human participants

Includes a workbook with keypoints, activities to reinforce the content, and additional online resources

Interactive workshop where the trainer stimulates engagement and discussion with the attendees

Format

1-day live workshop delivered by an expert trainer

Auditorium or classroom style

Available in-person or virtually

Audience

Up to 250 early-career clinical researchers

Masterclass in Bioethics

Conducting research with human participants is important in clinical studies, to ensure the safety and efficacy of interventions or identify risk factors involved in diseases pathogenesis. However, strict ethical guidelines must be followed to ensure the safety of these participants and allow publication of the associated articles. This 1-day workshop reviews the established international guidelines that clinical researchers are expected to adhere to during these studies. Nature Masterclasses workshops are available in-person and virtually.

Bioethics workshop - led by experts

Ethics in human experiments

Reviews unethical human experimentation in the past that led to the need for international standards of ethics for these experimental study designs
Focuses on the Declaration of Helsinki and its core principles as well as the more recent revisions
Reviews additional ethical guidelines used in more specific studies such as the pharmaceutical industry and vaccine research

Research ethics committees (REC)

Covers research ethics committees (RECs) and institutional review boards (IRBs)
Discusses the composition of these groups and why their diversity is important for research and society
Focuses predominantly on what RECs are evaluating in a study, and how to increase the likelihood of proposal approval
Reviews when REC approval is necessary, as well as those study designs where it is not needed

Informed consent

Highlights the importance of obtaining informed consent from all participants in human studies
Reviews why informed consent is needed for participation in a study and when consent for publication is needed for publishing certain images
Discusses how to properly obtain verbal informed consent from certain individuals
Discusses using vulnerable persons in human experiments and when to obtain assent in addition to consent

Standards of care and post-trial provisions

Defines standard of care both universally and regionally and why this is important for the participants in a study
Discusses how to apply these standards of care when designing a clinical trial, to ensure that it is ethical for human participation
Discusses post-trial provisions for all participants and how this should be discussed with the study sponsor and participants
Emphasises the importance of publishing the study, regardless of the outcomes