Prof. Dr. med. Alena M. Buyx

Director of the Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine, Technical University of Munich

Prof. Dr. med. Alena Buyx is Professor of Ethics of Medicine and Health Technologies and Director of the Institute for History and Ethics of Medicine (IHEM) at the Technical University of Munich.

She holds the venia legendi for the subject triad ethics, history and theory of medicine. Since 2020, she has been chair of the German Ethics Council, of which she has been a member since 2016.

Alena Buyx works on the entire breadth of biomedical ethics and theory, from the ‘classic’ medical ethical questions from clinical practice to challenges posed by biotechnological innovation and medical research; to ethical and justice issues in modern healthcare systems.

She takes an interdisciplinary approach to embedded ethics, where ethical issues are part of the development of medical innovations from the outset. She collaborates with clinical colleagues, lawyers, social scientists, philosophers, health economists, and psychologists.

Alena Buyx is a fully qualified physician with further degrees in philosophy and sociology. Before her appointment in Munich, she worked at the University of Kiel, the University of Münster, and Harvard University, and as a Deputy Director of the English Ethics Council and Senior Fellow at University College London.