Akira Akabayashi, MD, PhD, HEC-C

Akira Akabayashi, MD, PhD, HEC-C is a Professor Emeritus, University of Tokyo, Japan. He is also an Affiliated Professor of University of Washington, Department of Bioethics and Humanities, USA and a Research Professor of the Division of Medical Ethics, New York University School of Medicine, USA. His research interests span cross-cultural bioethics, global bioethics, public health ethics, research ethics, medical/clinical ethics such as informed consent, organ transplantation, and end-of-life issues, medical humanities such as professionalism, bioethics policy making, neuroethics, and ethics of regenerative medicine. He was also honored as a Fellow of The Hastings Center (USA) in 2008.

 

As an academic researcher, he has published more than 200 original articles and more than 20 books or chapters in English in addition to many Japanese publications. As a principal investigator, Prof. Akabayashi receives competitive governmental research funds of over one million US dollars annually. As an educator, Prof. Akabayashi has taught bioethics/medical ethics for over 30 years to medical students as well as undergraduate students in many fields and has supervised more than 90 PhD and masters students.

 

Prof. Akabayashi also serves as chair of the Research Ethics Committee at the University of Tokyo Faculty of Medicine. In this capacity, he has reviewed over 30,000 research protocols. He is also the Founding Director of Office for Human Research Studies where he conducts research ethics consultation. Prof. Akabayashi was engaged in clinical ethics consultation as the Founding Director of the Clinical Ethics Center at the University of Tokyo Hospital and dealt with more than 3,000 consultations annually. His clinical experience is also notable. He served for 8 years as a Professor of Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the University of Tokyo Hospital, promoting biopsychosocial model in medicine. His clinical subspeciality is eating disorder. As a part-time physician, he worked at a hospice for ten years.

 

He was also a member of several governmental bioethics policy committees in Japan, such as the Bioethics and Biosafety Commission, and the Council for Science and Technology Policy. He also served a member of UNESCO International Bioethics Committee and is now a board member of International Association for Bioethics, and an International Advisory Board, Oxford Centre for Practical Ethics, Oxford, UK. Prof. Akabayashi now serves as an editorial board of Journal of Medical Ethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics and an editorial advisor for the journal BMC Medical Ethics, a consulting editor for Asian Bioethics Review, and BioPsychoSocial Medicine. He was also an editor-in-chief of the Journal of Japan Association for Bioethics and was on editorial boards of Health Care Analysis.

 

Prof. Akabayashi established the first Bioethics Center (University of Tokyo Center of Biomedical Ethics and Law: CBEL) in Asia in 2003. This center was acknowledged as a global Center of Excellence in Japan, highlighting the strong leadership shown by Prof. Akabayashi. This leadership ability is also reflected internationally, as Prof. Akabayashi has advanced a network known as the Global Alliance of Biomedical Ethics Centers (GABEX) that comprises 10 world class bioethics centers including The Hastings Center, USA, and the Ethox Center of Oxford University, UK. The accomplishment of GABEX is published as a book: The Future of Bioethics: International Dialogue, edited by Prof. Akabayashi (Oxford University Press, 2014, by 90 brilliant authors). His ability as an organizer as well as an academic educator and researcher is highly evaluated. His English casebook textbook for multicultural learners, Biomedical Ethics in Asia (2000, McGraw-Hill Medical) which is usable in multicultural settings is going to be revised in the 2nd-edition. His current interest focuses on global bioethics, expanding dialogues among all bioethics researchers in the world. His recent monograph, Bioethics Across the Globe: Rebirthing Bioethics (2020, Springer Nature) received Book Award of Mitsui-Sumitomo Foundation. This monograph was downloaded more than 20,000 times, including Africa, South-East Asia, and South America.

Akira Akabayashi, MD, PhD, HEC-C

Academic Title: 
Professor
Department Roles: 
Department of Biomedical Ethics and Center for Biomedical Ethics and Law (CBEL)
Tokyo
University of Tokyo Graduate School of Medicine