Donna Dickenson

Donna Dickenson is professor emerita of medical ethics at the University of London and research associate at the Centre for Health, Law, and Emerging Technologies at the University of Oxford. Her book Body Shopping: Converting Body Parts to Profit was called “essential reading” by The Lancet and “ambitious and thoughtful” by New Scientist, and Philip Pullman wrote, “The story of how we have allowed private corporations to patent genes, to stockpile human tissue, and in short to make a profit out of what many people feel ought to be common goods is a shocking one. No one with any interest at all in medicine and society should miss this.” In 2006, Dickenson was awarded the prestigious International Spinoza Lens award—other recipients have included Edward Said, Michael Walzer, and Richard Sennett—for her contribution to public debate on ethics, becoming the first and only woman to win the prize.