Ames Dhai

Professor Dhai established and is the Director of the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, and Honorary Professor in the College of Human and Health Sciences, Swansea University, UK. She is Chairperson of the National Bioethics Committee of the UNESCO National Commission, and is a Board member of the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority. She served two terms as Deputy Chair of the National Health Research Ethics Council and is a Past President of the South African Medical Association. She is on the WHO’s African Advisory Committee for Health Research and was on Working Groups of the WMA (Declarations of Helsinki, 2013 and Taipei, 2016). She participated in activities of the Institutes of Medicine (USA), and the National Academies of Sciences (USA). She is also a Vice Chairperson of the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO and on a CIOMS Working Group on Regulating Health Research in LMICs. She was on the Academy of Science South Africa (ASSAF) Panel on Genomics and Genetics ELSI and is currently on the ASSAF Panel on Gene Therapies including Gene Editing ELSI. She is Editor-in-chief of the South African Journal of Bioethics and Law and Associate Editor of the South African Medical Journal. She can be credited with entrenching bioethics and human rights as an integral aspect of health sciences in SA. Using an academic platform, Professor Dhai has taken a lead in health advocacy and activism locally and internationally and has published extensively in this area.