[18th World Congress of Bioethics] Harvard X CUHK Joint Symposium (8 July 2026)
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Building upon the formal academic collaboration established between our centers in 2025, the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics and CUHK Centre for Bioethics are delighted to convene their third joint symposium on the global stage of the 18th World Congress of Bioethics (WCB) in Johannesburg — the prestigious, biennial gathering organized by the International Association of Bioethics (IAB) for the global bioethics community. This partnership has marked a steady conceptual progression: our inaugural symposium in June 2025 laid the vital groundwork by connecting global voices and bridging cross-cultural perspectives to expand our collective horizons, while our December 2025 virtual symposium translated June insights into actionable priorities that shape what we teach, what we study, and how we practice in global bioethics.
Please explore the buttons below to access the main Congress platform or revisit the milestones that have shaped this journey.
This July, we culminate these evolving insights with five talks in our session, "Framing a Global Bioethics through Culture, Relationality, and Metaphor," with each contributes to components of the rich moral landscape of a global bioethics. In depicting this vast landscape, this symposium highlights conceptual and methodological frames for the work of bioethics with emphasis on Asian and African contributions and the use of metaphor. Candidate concepts for a global bioethics include African ubuntu, Chinese Confucianist tianxia, Japanese shinmi, and Indonesian pancasila, and Malaysian etika and operate in conjunction with metaphor as a central method that can simultaneously explore and imbue meaning. Discussion following the papers will focus on elucidation of a non-essentialist global bioethics.
Explore the Joint Symposium
Speakers
Dr. Rebecca Weintraub BRENDEL
Director, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics, USA
Professor Roger Yat-nork CHUNG
Co-Director, CUHK Centre for Bioethics, Hong Kong SAR, China
Professor Nancy S. JECKER
Visiting Professor, CUHK Centre for Bioethics, Hong Kong SAR, China; and Professor of Bioethics and Humanities, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle WA, USA
Dr. Hajung LEE
Associate Professor, Religion, Spirituality, and Society and Bioethics, University of Puget Sound, USA
Dr. Reina OZEKI-HAYASHI
Lecturer, Department of Medical Ethics, Tohoku University, Japan
Dr. Ardita PRAMUDANI
Lecturer, Department of Forensic and Medicolegal, Universitas Diponegoro, Indonesia
Dr. Hui Siu TAN
Bioethicist and Clinical Ethicist, Ministry of Health, MalaysiaPaper Presenters, Titles, & Abstracts
The symposium is structured around the following five linked talks and an audience discussion. Each talk will take 12 to 15 minutes; after all the talks there will be a discussion of 15 to 30 minutes.
Talk 1
Title: “Reimagining Global Bioethics through a Whole-Person Metaphor”
Presenters: Professor Roger Yat-nork CHUNG, Dr. Rebecca Weintraub BRENDEL, Dr. Hajung LEE
Talk 2
Title: “A Curious Coincidence between Chinese and African Ethics: Implications for Global Bioethics”
Presenter: Professor Nancy S. JECKER
Talk 3
Title: “Lessons from Shinmi and the Doctor-Seeking-the-Mean Model: Insights from Japan and East Asia for Global Ethics”
Presenter: Dr. Reina OZEKI-HAYASHI
Talk 4
Title: “Integrating Pancasila into Clinical Practice: Reflections on Indonesia’s Moral Challenges”
Presenter: Dr. Ardita PRAMUDANI
Talk 5
Title: “Redefining Etika and Restructuring the Medical Culture in Malaysia through Clinical Ethics”
Presenter: Dr. Hui Siu TAN
Symposium Co-hosts
The Center for Bioethics brings together the rich intellectual resources across Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, along with colleagues and institutions worldwide, to help ensure that scientific progress, medical therapeutics, and health care practices are developed hand-in-hand with reflection upon the profound moral questions raised by advances in the life sciences and biotechnology. Our mission is executed through education, research, and service, with programs that prepare the next generation of practitioners and leaders in bioethics, conduct normative and empirical research to address bioethical questions in clinical care, research, and public policy, and engage the public in understanding and addressing ethical aspects of health care and biotechnology.
CUHK Centre for Bioethics at the Faculty of Medicine (CU Medicine) is dedicated to advancing education, research, and engagement in bioethics. Located in Hong Kong, where Eastern and Western traditions converge, the Centre fosters cross-cultural dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration to address the ethical challenges posed by modern science and technology.
Committed to shaping future health practitioners and biomedical scientists with a strong foundation in biomedical ethics, the Centre promotes broader bioethical awareness across professions and communities. It endeavours to contribute meaningfully to the global discourse on bioethics and navigate the ethical challenges arising from the evolving landscape of science and biomedicine, ensuring that progress is guided by values central to humanity, such as compassion, justice, and respect for life.