As chairman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority in the United Kingdom, she leads the 21-member panel that supervises research, and licenses and monitors treatment, in the areas of in vitro fertilization, donor insemination, and the storage of eggs, sperm and embryos. In addition to ensuring that medical and professional standards are met in these areas, the authority considers related ethical issues.
Deech is a lawyer by training who has published in the fields of family law and property law. Like Deech, most of the authority's membership comes from outside of the medicine and human embryo research fields.
"Some of the issues confronting the United States have been confronted by Britain," said Prof. Sanford Katz (Law), who is coordinating Deech's visit. "They have set up this regulatory agency, which we have not. We are not in the lead; Britain is."
The lecture, which will begin at 5 p.m. in Stuart 411, is free and open to the public.
-Michael Seele