Mariachiara Tallacchini joined the Harvard STS program as a National Science Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow on Prof. Jasanoff’s programme “Reframing Rights: Constitutional Implications of Technological Change” in 2000/2001, working on regulatory models in xenotransplantation. Mariachiara’s interests focus on technoscience and the law from a STS and legal philosophy perspective. Her current research involve issues of biomedicine and the law, such as regulatory aspects of human biological materials, tissue engineering, engineered animals, xenotransplantation, as well as more general policy and legal issues, such as the precautionary principle, the democratization of scientific expertise and democratic participatory procedures in science policy, and the political use of ethics as a regulatory measure.

Mariachiara Tallacchini is full professor of Philosophy of Law at the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Piacenza (Italy) and also teaches Science Technology and the Law (at the Catholic University of Piacenza) and Bioethics (at the State University of Milan, Italy). Her background is in Law and in Legal Philosophy (PhD, University of Padua, Italy). She is member of several scientific and ethics committees and has been a consultant to the Italian Parliament (patentability of biotechnological inventions and protection of animal rights) and to the WHO. She is the chair of the European Advisory Group for the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union on Science and Society.

Publications

Beyond Legitimate Science: The Case for Policy-related Science, in R. ter Meulen, N. Biller, Ch. Lenk, R. Lie (eds), Evidence-based Practice in Medicine and Health Care (Springer Press. Berlin 2005), pp.25-33.

“Before and beyond the precautionary principle: Epistemology of uncertainty in science and law”,Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 207 (2005), pp.645-651.

“Rhetoric of Anonymity and Property Rights in Human Biological Materials (HBMs)”, Law and the Human Genome Review, January-June (2005), pp.153-175.

“Legalising science”, Health Care Analysis 10,3, (2005), pp.329-337.

Ethics and Genetics. A Workbook for Practitioners and Students (with G. de Wert, R. ter Meulen, R. Mordacci) (Berghahn Books, Oxford-New York 2003).