Pushing the Frontiers of Big Data & AI with Biomedical Ethics

Increasing access to Big Data and the use of Artifical Intelligence (AI) and machine learning is changing the landscape of biomedical science and research, bringing with it challenges and ethical issues. As we harness the use of Big Data and AI in biomedical research, it is important that we understand and rationalise the emerging bioethical considerations and their impact on us and society. Join our expert panel for a discussion on bioethical issues relating to the use of Big Data and AI in human biomedical research.

About the Speakers

Professor Chin Jing Jih

Professor Chin Jing Jih is the Chairman of the Medical Board and Senior Consultant Geriatrician at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Central Health. He chairs the National Healthcare Group Research Ethics Committee and holds teaching responsibilities at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University and the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. Professor Chin serves in several committees in the Ministry of Health and the community, including the Board of Directors for the Agency for Integrated Care, the Bioethics Advisory Committee in Singapore and the National Medical Ethics Committee.

Professor Julian Savulescu

Professor Julian Savulescu is the Chen Su Lan Professor in Medical Ethics at the National University of Singapore (NUS), where he is the Director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics. An award-winning ethicist and moral philosopher, Professor Savulescu trained in neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy, and was the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, where he founded the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics in 2003, before moving to NUS in 2022. He is also the co-Director of the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and Melbourne Law School. He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences.

Professor Robert Morris 

Since 2017, Dr Robert JT Morris has been the Chief Technology Strategist for the Ministry of Health Office for Healthcare Transformation. He is also a Professor at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. His current work focuses on the application of computer and information sciences, including AI, to transform healthcare.  Prior to 2017, he headed IBM Research’s Global Laboratories.

Dr Voo Teck Chuan

Dr Voo Teck Chuan is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. He works on ethical issues in health care and policy and is a member of the Bioethics Advisory Committee in Singapore.

About the Moderator

Professor Patrick Tan Boon Oi

Professor Patrick Tan is the Executive Director of the Genome Institute of Singapore and a Professor at Duke-NUS Medical School Singapore. He is a Senior Principal Investigator at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore and Executive Director of PRECISE (Precision Health Research Singapore), a business unit under the Ministry of Health coordinating the nation’s National Precision Medicine programme.

About Bioethics

Bioethics is the study of ethical, social and legal issues emerging from advances in biomedical sciences and research. This provides a framework that enables us to think through and make practical, reasonable decisions on controversial ethical issues in biomedical advancements.

This programme highlights the trends and developments in the study of ethical issues in human biomedical science and research. To find out more, visit the Bioethics resource corner at Level 7 of the National Library, set up in collaboration with the Bioethics Advisory Committee (BAC), supported by the Ministry of Health, Singapore.

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