Website: European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies (EGE)

The Group is a neutral, independent, pluralist and multidisciplinary body, composed of fifteen experts appointed by the European Commission for their expertise and personal qualities.

The task of the Group is to examine ethical questions arising from science and new technologies and on this basis to issue Opinions to the European Commission in connection with the preparation and implementation of Community legislation or policies.

In order to face the ethical issues that are arising with the rapid advances in science and technology, the Members represent a broader range of professional competences in different disciples such as, inter alia, biology and genetics, medicine, pharmacology, agricultural sciences, ICT, law, ethics, philosophy, and theology.

For every full Opinion to be issued by the Group, a roundtable is held before the Opinion is adopted, to which representatives of the Institutions of the European Union, experts of the fields, parties representing different interests, including NGOs, patients and consumer organisations and industrial stakeholders, are invited to participate in the debate.

Issues covered include: Nanomedicine; ICT implants in the human body; Food from cloned animals; Umbilical cord blood banking; Clinical research in developing countries; Patenting inventions involving human stem cells; Stem cell research; Doping in sport; Human tissue banking.