15 Global Summit

2026

Steering Committe

Meet the distinguished leaders guiding the 15th Global Summit on Bioethics

Shamima Parvin Lasker

Professor of Anatomy

Secretary General of Bangladesh Bioethics Society &

President of 15 Global Summit of  Bioethics/National Ethics; Committee

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Luisa Borgia

Professor of Bioethics, Polytechnic University of Marche. Chair of the National Bioethics Committee of Republic of San Marino 

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Katherine Littler

Co-Unit Head of the Health Ethics & Governance Unit at WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. 

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Dafna Feinholz

Chief of the Bioethics and Ethics of Science Section, Social and Human Science, UNESCO.

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Taslima Monsoor

Professor & Advisor of Law, American International University of Bangladesh; President, Bangladesh Bioethics Society

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Faryal Khamis

Senior Consultant and Head of subspecialities; Deputy Director, Internal Medicine, Royal Hospital in Muscat, Oman.

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Arif Hossain

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 Professor & Course Coordinator, Human Rights, Etrat University, Vice President, Bangladesh Bioethics Society. Bangladesh

Voo Teck Chuan

Head, Office of Ethics in Healthcare, SingHealth Bioethicist, SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute, Singapore. 

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Namita Ghimire

Research Officer, Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC); Member, Institutional Review Committee (IRC) Accreditation Committee, NHRC. Nepal

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Abdul Azeez Hameed

Medical Officer, Dhamanaveshi, Ministry of Health, Maldives

Member, National Health Research Council (NHRC), Maldives.

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MA Shakoor

Chairman, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bangladesh Medical University; Member, National Research Ethics Committee; Chair, Ethics Review Committee, BBS 

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MD Matiur Rahman

Deputy Executive Director & Chief, Health Sector, TMSS, Life Member of Bangladesh Bioethics Committee

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Lotta Eriksson

 Secretary General of the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics,  Sweden 

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Patricio Santillán-Doherty MD. 

Head, National Bioethics Commission (Feb 2022). Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM

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Shamima Pervin lasker

Professor of Anatomy Secretary General of Bangladesh Bioethics Society &

President of 15 Global Summit of  Bioethics/National Ethics; Committe

Prof Shamima is the Member Secretary, Ethics Review Committee, Bangladesh Bioethics Committee, from 2014 to 2026. She was also a Member of the National Research Ethics Committee from 2009-2024. During her tenure in the national ethics committee, she made praiseworthy contributions to developing guidelines e.g. National Research Ethics Guidelines (BMRC),2011 & 2022; Research with Autopsy, 2021, and the BMRC Manual on Institutional Review Boards, 2022.  

She introduced climate change, AI, and open future concepts in the IRB in Bangladesh.  Sixty IRB members were educated by the workshop Sensitization and Capacity Enhancement of EC in Bangladesh on Climate Change-Related Ethical issues and Open Future for the next generation.

As a pioneer of bioethics in Bangladesh, Shamima was honored with “Honorary Lifetime Membership” of the UNESCO Asia Pacific School of Ethics in 2009. She worked as a Consultant of bioethics for UNESCO in 2009 and FAO in 2015, respectively.  

Shamima is the President of the Asian Bioethics Association (ABA) since 2022; Vice President of APAME (Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors) for 2023-2026; Treasurer of the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) from 2017- 2019, and Member Secretary of the Bangladesh Scholarly Medical Journal Editors (BSMJE).

Of her 38 years of teaching career, she worked as Professor and Head of Anatomy since 2007 in Bangladesh and abroad.

 

Luisa Borgia

Professor of Bioethics, Polytechnic University of Marche. Chair of the National Bioethics Committee of Republic of San Marino

Luisa Borgia, is the Vice Chair of the Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO) – Council of Europe.

Luisa Borgia has degrees in Philosophy and Sociology and a PhD in History and Theory of Law from the University of Rome-Tor Vergata.

She obtained her Postgraduate and Master’s degrees in Bioethics from the Catholic University of Rome.

She teaches Bioethics at the Polytechnic University of Marche, where she coordinates the Master in Bioethics for Clinical Trials and Ethics Committees.

She was President of the 14th Global Summit of National Ethics Committees, organized in collaboration with WHO and UNESCO in the Republic of San Marino.

She is Member of the European Network of Research Ethics and Research Integrity (ENERI), of the European Commission.

She was a member of the Italian National Committee for Bioethics and of several Italian Ethics Committees for clinical trials.

She is the author of numerous monographs and publications in national and international scientific journals.

Katherine Littler

Co-Unit Head of the Health Ethics & Governance

Katherine Littler, Co-Unit Head of the Health Ethics & Governance Unit at WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. 

 

Katherine Littler focuses on the intersection of ethics, governance, and policy in global health and global health research. Katharine has responsibility for a broad portfolio of work, including epidemic preparedness and response, climate change and health, governance of emerging technologies, and trial design.

 

Prior to joining WHO in October 2018, she led the Global Policy Team at Wellcome, providing strategic advice on regulatory, governance and ethical issues. She led a programme of work focusing on research ethics, global governance and advocacy, epidemic preparedness, genomics and emerging technologies, and evidence into policy. She was involved in many international partnerships and sat on many oversight bodies, including: the PHE Ebola Governance Group; the IDDO Ebola Platform Steering Committee; the H3Africa Ethics and Regulatory Working Group and chaired the GLOPID-R data sharing working group.

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Dafna Feinholz

Dafna Feinholz Klip Director a.i. Division of Research, Ethics and Inclusion, Chief of Section Bioethics and Ethics of Science and Technology Section Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO. 

Dafna Feinholz has a PhD in Research Psychology (UIA Mexico) and a Master in Bioethics (Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain). Was the Head of the Reproductive Epidemiology Department at the Mexican National Institute of Perinatology, and the Director for Research and Planning of the Women and Health Program (Ministry of Health Mexico). She successively occupied the posts of Academic Coordinator of the National Commission of Human Genome at the Ministry of Health and Executive Director of the National Commission of Bioethics. Among her achievements, she ensured a more independent legal status for the National Bioethics Committees (NBC); contributed to define their mission as promoters of a bioethics culture; encouraged them to provide the society and decision-makers with the necessary elements to understand and tackle ethical issues. She drafted the first national guidelines for Research Ethics Committees and Clinical Bioethics Committees and promoted the law that established and differentiated both types of committees (law approved and currently in vigor). She was Mexico´s representative at the meetings of the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee to discuss UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Since September 2009, Dafna Feinholz is the Chief of the Bioethics and Ethics of Science Section, within UNESCO’s Social and Human Science Sector. In this capacity, she leads different activities aiming at reinforcing capacities of Member States to manage bioethical challenges and to identify the ethical, legal and social implications of cutting-edge science, emerging technologies and their application for sustainable development, and promoting awareness raising and public debate. She has overseen the process of the elaboration of the Recommendation on Ethics of AI and the recently adopted Recommendation on Ethics of Neurotechnology.

Taslima Monsoor

President of bangladesh Bioethics Society

Taslima Monsooor, Professor & Advisor of Law, American International University of Bangladesh; President of Bangladesh Bioethics Society

 

Prof. Dr. Taslima Monsoor was the Professor of the Department of Law and Former Dean of the Faculty of Law of Dhaka University. Advisor, Department of Law, American International University of Bangladesh. She did her LL. B (Hons.), LL.M from Dhaka University and PhD from the University of London. She was awarded a Commonwealth Post-Doctoral Fellowship and Fulbright Specialist Exchange Program fellowship, University of London.  She was a faculty member of the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur.

 

She was elected Governor of the International Association of Law Schools (IALS) between 2014 and 2017. Prof. Dr. Taslima Monsoor has written several books, including Patriarchy to Gender Equity, Family Law, Economic Empowerment of Women.  Criminal Justice System of Women, Gender Custody, Guardianship, and Adoption.   She was awarded Annaya’s top ten women of the year 2003 for her contribution to education as the first women Dean of any faculty of the University of Dhaka.

Faryal khamis

Senior Consultant and Head of Subspecialties

Faryal Khamis, Senior Consultant and Head of Subspecialties, as well as the Deputy Director of Internal Medicine at the Royal Hospital in Muscat, Oman.

 

Dr. Faryal chairs the Antimicrobial Stewardship Committee and the Infection Prevention and Control Committee, and she actively participates in international, regional and  national committees and task forces under the Ministry of Health in Oman. She is a member of the National Oman Bioethics Committee and Deputy Chairperson for the Scientific Committee of Oman Bioethics Committee.

Dr. Khamis graduated with honors from Sultan Qaboos University in Oman in 1993. She completed her residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA, in 1999, followed by fellowship programs in Infectious Diseases and Medical Microbiology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Her primary research interests include respiratory viral infections, infections in immunocompromised patients (including those with HIV), antimicrobial stewardship, and SARS-CoV-2.

Arif Hossain

 Professor & Course Coordinator, Dept. of Human Rights

Arif Hossain, Professor & Course Coordinator, Dept. of Human Rights, Etrat University, Vice President, Bangladesh Bioethics Committee. Vice President of ABA (South Asia)

 

Arif Hossain is the professor and course coordinator of International Studies and Human Rights at different national institutions and reputed universities in Turkey, Iran, and Bangladesh. Besides his 32 years of academic excellence with research, he gained experience in Sustainable Urban Development.

 

Arif  Hossain shifted his profession to Bioethics. He obtained his Master’s in Bioethics in 2015 and a PhD in Bioethics and Global Public Health in 2022. Best Practices in Environmental Protection from Geo-politics, Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Human Subjects Research, and Gender, he earned certification from Italy, NIH, USA, and India, respectively.  

 

Dr Arif is the founder of the Bangladesh Bioethics Society and has been working as Vice President for this society. For his earnest zeal for bioethics, he was conferred a Lifetime Honorary Member from UNESCO School of Ethics in Asia and the Pacific. He is the vice President of the Asian Bioethics Association, Thailand in 2009.

 

Prof Hossain worked in collaboration with diverse government and international organizations, such as Dhaka Metropolitan Police, Highway Police, BRTC, BRTA, NAEM- Education Ministry, Ministry Science & Technology, LGRD, Prime Minister’s Health Advisor, Ministry of Health and Welfare, University Grants Commission, UNESCO, Bangladesh, and UNESCO (RUSHAP) Thailand. His research interests are research integrity, AI, and climate change.

Voo Teck Chuan

Head, Office of Ethics in Healthcare, SingHealth Bioethicist, SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute, Singapore.  Adjunct Assistant Professor, SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical School, Medicine Academic Clinical Programme, Signapore

Dr Voo Teck Chuan is also the Chairs the SingHealth Ethics Network Council, which together advance ethical best practices across the cluster. As Bioethicist with the SingHealth Duke-NUS Medical Humanities Institute, he contributes to its Bioethics and Health Professions Education programmes.

He has published more than 70 bioethics articles and book chapters and co-edited three books. He has played a central role in developing undergraduate medical ethics education and training for clinical, research, and transplant ethics committees in Singapore. He sits on various ethics committees and advisory boards, including the Singapore Bioethics Advisory Committee, National Advisory Committee for Laboratory Animal Research, and the National Medical Ethics Committee.

He was a Hastings Center Visiting Scholar, Caroline Miles Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Ethox Centre, and recipient of the Singapore Infectious Disease Fellowship.

He is on the Board of Directors of the International Association of Bioethics. serving as its Communications Officer. He has worked with the World Health Organization on integrating ethics into clinical guidelines and on ethics guidance for research, public health emergencies, and climate change.

Teck Chuan is Co-PI and Steering Committee Member of the Southeast Asia Bioethics Network.

Namita Ghimire

Research Officer, leading the Ethical Review M & E Section

Namita Ghimire, Research Officer, leading the Ethical Review M & E Section, Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), Nepal. Member: Institutional Review Committee (IRC) Accreditation Committee, NHRC

 

Namita Ghimire serves as the lead of the Ethical Review Monitoring and Evaluation Section at the Nepal Health Research Council (NHRC), overseeing the ethical integrity of health research conducted in Nepal. Her responsibilities include the ethical review of research proposals to ensure full compliance with national standards, as well as the post-approval monitoring of research projects to maintain ethical conduct. Additionally, she manages the ethical compliance of over 65 ethics committees nationwide.

Beyond her regulatory role, Namita leads ethics-related research and conducts workshops on ethical aspects and the regulatory frameworks. She has authored multiple ethics-related publications and is currently involved in a pandemic ethics project initiated by the University of Oslo, Norway, and she is currently pursuing her PhD at Kathmandu University. 

Abdul Azeez Hameed

Medical Officer, Dhamanaveshi, Ministry of Health

Abdul Azeez Hameed, Medical Officer, Dhamanaveshi, Ministry of Health, Mal

Member, National Health Research Council (NHRC), Maldives.

 

Dr. Abdul Azeez Hameed completed his undergraduate medical degree Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt in 2007.  Later, he completed his master of Research in Public Health at Villa College, Maldives in 2018.He has been working as a member at the National Health Research Council in the Maldives since May 2019.

 

His areas of work in public include raising public awareness through TV and radio programs, writing articles for daily papers, conducting awareness sessions, speaking at school assemblies on distinguished celebrations, and training healthcare professionals on tobacco cessation, communicable diseases, and NCD control. adolescent health, mental health, and Ramadan & health. For recognition of his achievement he was conferred the National Award in 2025, given by the president of the Maldives on this year’s National Day. The Maldivian Medical Association also awarded him a public awareness and health promotion award in both 2023 and 2024. He has also received the Health Minister’s special recognition award on tobacco control in 2025.

MA Shakoor 

MA Shakoor, Chairman, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Bangladesh Medical University; Member, National Research Ethics Committee; Chair, Ethics Review Committee, Bangladesh Bioethics Committee, and Member of National Research Ethics Committee, Bangladesh.

With thirty-four years of clinical experience,  Prof MA Shakoor is the President of the Long-term Treatment & Rehabilitation Cell for injured patients of the Anti-discrimination Movement, BMU, Dhaka. And the  Focal person: Robotic Rehabilitation Center in Bangladesh.   He is the recipient of the International ISSLS Fellowship in 20011 by the International Society for the Study of Lumber Spine.  

He graduated from Shere-E-Bangla Medical College, Barisal, Bangladesh.  He completed FCPS (Fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Dhaka, Bangladesh and also Ph D from the University of Chittagong, Bangladesh.

Professor Shakoor has ninety-seven articles published in peer-reviewed journals and has written 5 academic books. For his outstanding achievements in research, he was awarded the University Gold Medal in Research in 2016 and the University Grants Commission (UGC) Gold Medal. He was also awarded the Bioethics Award in 2019 for his generous contributions to the field of bioethics in the country.

He is the former Executive Editor of PMR Bulletin (Official bulletin of The Bangladesh Association of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Editorial Board member of Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics. And Editorial board Member of the Journal of Medicine and Medical Science.

MD Matiur Rahman

eputy Executive Director & Chief

MD Matiur Rahman, Deputy Executive Director & Chief, Health Sector, TMSS, Life Member of Bangladesh Bioethics Committee

Lotta Eriksson

Secretary General of the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics, Sweden.

Lotta Eriksson is the Secretary General of the Swedish National Council on Medical Ethics, a position she has held since 2009. She has worked with policy making and ethical analysis in the biomedical and health policy field within the Government Offices of Sweden since 2002.

As Secretary General, Lotta has strengthened the Council’s preparatory processes, introduced strategic policy documents, and fostered a more inclusive approach to public dialogue. She has drafted and coordinated numerous reports and opinions on a wide range of topics, and has arranged several national and international conferences. 

Previously, she served as a research officer at the Council and as a special advisor at the Swedish Ministry of Health and Social Affairs. Lotta also has a background in communication and digital services.

 Patricio Santillán-Doherty MD. 

Head, National Bioethics Commission (2022). Professor of Thoracic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UNAM, Mexico

Patricio Santillán-Doherty; postgraduate academic advisor and professor of the research ethics course in the Master’s and Doctoral Program in Medical, Dental, and Health Sciences, UNAM. He was Medical Director of the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases in Mexico City (August 2013 – January 2022) and Head of the Department of Experimental Surgery at the National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition (2007-2013). He is a full member of the National Academy of Medicine of Mexico and Emeritus Academician of the Mexican Academy of Surgery. He is a member of the American College of Surgeons and the National System of Researchers. He also chaired the College of Bioethics (2015-2021).