Courses Taught

Biomedical Research Law and Policy Seminar
Bioethics and Law
Genetics Law and Policy Seminar 
Regulating Drugs and Other Medical Products

Profile

Professor Rebecca Dresser is an expert in biomedical ethics. She holds a joint appointment with Washington University School of Medicine, teaching law and medical students about legal and ethical issues in end-of-life care, biomedical research, genetics, assisted reproduction, and related topics. She has written extensively in her field and is the co-author of a casebook on bioethics and law and a book on the ethical treatment of animals. She is also the author of a book on patient advocacy and research ethics. In addition to her teaching, research, and scholarship, she is on the advisory or editorial boards of several prestigious journals devoted to bioethics. A past member of the President’s Council on Bioethics, she currently sits on the Washington University Medical Center Institutional Review Board, as well as its Embryonic Stem Cell Research Oversight Committee. Professor Dresser is a prolific speaker and panelist at national and international symposia, conferences, and workshops on such topics as bioethics and cancer; advance treatment directives; stem cell research; biomedical research policy; and human cloning. Before becoming a law professor, she clerked for the Hon. James E. Doyle, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin, and held a postdoctoral fellowship in the Psychiatry Department at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.