Biography

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, preconceptional and prenatal screening, neonatal screening, and anti-doping. He published more than 180 publications in international peer reviewed journals.

He is programme director of the Master of Bioethics and teaches medical ethics to medical students. He is member of the Flemish Commission on neonatal screening (2012-now), member of the Belgian Consultative Committee on Bioethics (2014-2018, 2019-2023) and expert of the Belgian Superior Health Council (2014-2020). Within the European Society of Human Genetics he was member of the Professional and Public Policy Committee (2009-2016) and elected member of the board (2012-2017). He is member of the Research Ethics Committee of UZ/KU Leuven (2018-2022). He was member of the WADA Ethics Expert Group (2016-2020). Since August 2020 he is chair of the Department of Public Health and Primary Care of the KU Leuven.

He received various prizes. In 2006 he received the triennal prize for biomedical ethics ‘Professor Roger Borghgraef’.  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 .

Since 2009 he is Invited Scholar at the Center for Genomics and Policy of Mc Gill University and collaborates on various joint publications in the field of biobanking, direct-to-consumer genetic testing in children, and anti-doping.