Carlo Petrini (scientist)
Carlo Petrini (Turin, Italy, 6 November 1965) is an Italian scientist and senior researcher at the Italian National Institute of Health (Istituto Superiore di Sanità, ISS), where he is head of the Bioethics Unit.
Biography
Petrini studied at the University of Turin where he graduated in 1988 with a degree in Biological Sciences. The year after he began at the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) where he developed an interest in problems tied to ethics in scientific research, in particular in the biomedical ethics.[1]
Petrini is Vice-Chair of the Ethics Committee of the ISS.
He is Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life and contributor to L'Osservatore Romano.
In 2007 he became head of the Bioethics Unit at ISS.[2]
Petrini is also coordinator of National and International level research projects in the bioethical field. In his field, Petrini was nominated to serve on the following official commissions and committees:
- National Bioethics Committee, as delegate of the President of the ISS
- Commission on Hematopoietic Cord Blood Stem Cells (Decree of the Minister of the Health, 20 February 2007)
- Experts’ Panel for the Italian National Health Council
- Italian National Transplant Centre
- Joint Commission National Bioethics Committee – National Committee for Biosecurity, Biotechnology and Life Sciences (Presidency of the Council of Ministers)
- Commission of experts for the periodical revision of the list of illnesses in which the use of stem cell transplants is scientifically established (Decree of the Minister of Health19 November 2009)
- Council of Europe.
He is a member of the ethics committees of various institutions, among those the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy, and the Environment (Agenzia Nazionale per le Nuove Tecnologie, l’Energia e lo Sviluppo Economico Sostenibile, ENEA). He is a member of other commissions and committees which include the National Commission for the Program of Crossover Kidney Transplant, the Commission for the Definition of Criteria for Kidney Allocation, the Working Group "Clinical trials with mentally incapacitated subjects" of the Italian National Bioethics Committee, and the Interdepartmental Group of Oncology at the ISS.
He is a member of the advisory committees of various journals in the bioethical sector. He is editor of the Section “Ethics of Biology” of the journal “Biologi Italiani” of the Italian Association of Professional Biologists.[3]
Petrini has provided bioethical consultation for several prestigious institutions including: Italian National Blood Centre; Italian Superior Council of the Magistracy; European Science Foundation; Italian Data Protection Authority; Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace; United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana “Giovanni Treccani”. Petrini is currently a lecturer in the Bioethics Department of the University Regina Apostolorum and in the past a contracted Bioethics professor in the Medicine Department at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.[4][5]
Works
Petrini is author of several hundred publications, most of which in internationally rated scientific journals and several of which have been awarded prizes.[6] His book "Bioethics, environment, risk" won the International Peccei Prize.[7] His book “Bioetica nella sanità” consists of articles originally published in L'Osservatore Romano.