But beyond medical feasibility, transplantation medicine also has to wrestle with societal, ethical and legal problems. Questions related to distributive justice (utility principle versus urgency) or organ donation (e.g. presumed consent, organ donation after cerebral death, remunerated organ donation) require further transdisciplinary discussion in order to gain societal acceptance and legitimacy.
When looking at the future, transplantation medicine repeatedly fosters the following questions: how much pioneering spirit is permissible? What are the boundaries of the possible and the ethically justifiable? How can medical innovation be transferred from the laboratory to the sickbed as safely as possible? How can society be supported when it tries to respond to complex transplantation and ethics challenges?
Within the CAS Research Focus, these questions will be discussed with a broad interdisciplinary audience as well as socially, ethically and legally contextualized. The aim of the research focus is to establish an interdisciplinary network at LMU. This network should be in a position to pursue the main tenor of the CAS Research Focus in the future while also reinforcing its expertise in order to function as a national political consultant for questions revolving around transplantation medicine.
Press
Medizin am Limit, in: CAS Aviso 8 (2013), S. 1-4.