- Cultural differences in bioethics
- ethics of aging, end-of-life, and life planning
- Concepts of body and identity
- Lay people and patients' perspective in medical ethics
- Relationship between ethics and empirical studies
Since April 2010, Silke Schicktanz is full-professor of Culture and Ethics of Biomedicine at the Department of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine at the University Medical Center Goettingen. Since May 2011 until at least End of October 2012, she is visiting research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley by a grant of the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation (see http://bbrg.berkeley.edu/).
She has studied Biology and Philosophy at the University of Tübingen from 1991-1997. Her PhD Thesis on ethics of xenotransplantation was approved by the University of Tübingen in ethics of life science in 2002.
She held various research positions at the University of Tübingen (1999-2000), at the Max-Delbrück-Center for Molecular Medicine/Forschungszentrum Jülich (2002-2003) and at the Department for Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine at the University of Muenster (2004-2005). Being interested in public dialogue and engagement, she was project leader of the first nation-wide citizen conference on genetic testing, held at Deutsches Hygiene-Museum in Dresden (1/2001-2/2002).
More recently, she is member of the Advanced Grant Evaluation Panel of the European Research Council (ERC) (2009-2013).
The scope of the Dept. of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine at University Medical Center Goettingen includes research and teaching in the field of History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine.
Ongoing research projects, several are third party funded, are:
2011-2014:
KFO 179/2 (funded by the DFG): Ethical aspects in personalized rectal cancer therapy: patients’ expectations and attitudes toward prognostic tests using biomarkers. A socio-empirical and medical-ethical analysis (Subproject 9). www.kfo179.de
2010-2015:
DFG postgraduated program: Dynamics of Space and Gender, co-applicant(University Göttingen & University Kassel)
2010-2013:
BMBF: Biomedical Life plans for Ageing - values between individual ethical reflection and social norms.
2010-2013:
VolkswagenFoundation: Research project MEDICAL ETHICS/SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY: "Autonomy and Trust with Regard to Patient Associations" within the research group "Autonomy and Trust in Modern Medicine; Knowledge - Practice - Norm" http://www.autonomie-und-vertrauen.uni-goettingen.de/index.php?id=1&L=1
2010-2012:
"Cross-Cultural Ethics of Health and Responsibility:
Expert and lay perspectives regarding bioethical dilemmas
in Germany and Israel", funded by the German-Israeli-Foundation for Scientific Research and Development (GIF), in co-op. with. Aviad Raz (Ben Gurion University)
2007-2012:
"Decision making in living organ donation - medico-ethical and anthropological aspects", together with Sabine Wöhlke