On March 3, 2020 the FSBI RCMG Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics held a round table “Ethical and medico-genetic problems of preimplantation genetic diagnosis.”

Organizers of the round table were the FSBI RCMG Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics and the Center for Scientific and Information Studies on Science, Education and Technology of INION RAS

Introducing a new knowledge about the human genome and new opportunities for reproductive choice, the medical genetics has an impact on the prevailing anthropological attitudes, ideas about relational and family lines, social and ethical-normative contexts of the general development of biomedical knowledge. Is information about the unborn child’s genome always a blessing? What role a doctor plays in a moral choice situation? What are the specifics of PGD ethical problems? What is the legal framework for PGD in our country? Is there a balance of ethical and legal approaches in the choice between embryo selection and termination of pregnancy for medical reasons? These and other issues became the subject of discussion of the round table participants.

Major presentations were made by:

• Dmitry Yuryevich Trofimov, Doctor of Biological Science, Director of the Institute of Reproductive Genetics, the FSBI Kulakov Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology of the RF Ministry of Health
• Elena Georgievna Grebenshchikova, Doctor of Philosophy, Head of the Center for Scientific and Information Studies on Science, Education and Technology of INION RAS, Professor of Bioethics Department in the Institute of Bioethics, N.I. Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University.
• Vera Leonidovna Izhevskaya, Doctor of medical science, Deputy Director of Academician N.P. Bochkov Research Centre for Medical Genetics, Chairman of the Russian Medical Genetics Society.
• Valentina Viktorovna Lapaeva, Doctor of Law, Senior Researcher, Institute of State and Law, the Russian Academy of Science.
• Pavel Dmitrievich Tishchenko, Doctor of Philosophy, Chief researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Russian Academy of Science.