Mats G. Hansson
Mats G. Hansson
Professor of Biomedical Ethics
Director
Mats Hansson is the director of the Centre for Research Ethics & Bioethics and has conducted extensive research in biomedical ethics as principal investigator in several multi-disciplinary research projects dealing with issues ranging from ethical, social and legal aspects of the implementation of genetic diagnosis in clinical practice and the use of human tissue materials in research, to clinical and medical ethics. He holds an undergraduate degree in biology (1974) and a doctoral degree of theology (1991). Mats Hansson is Professor of Biomedical Ethics, funded by Uppsala University and the Uppsala County Council together. He also works as a clinical consultant at Akademiska sjukhuset (Uppsala University Hospital).
E-mail: Mats.Hansson@crb.uu.se
Phone: +46 18 471 61 97
Research
Mats G. Hansson leads work packages on ethical, legal and social issues in several EU projects on biobank and registry research. He is the principal investigator in Mind the Risk and one of the co-ordinators of BBMRI-ERIC's ELSI common service.
PhD Supervision
Current
- Åsa Grauman: Self-perceived risk for cardiovascular diseases and preferences for risk information
- Sofia Lavén: Cardiovascular risk communication in primary care
- Amal Matar: Ethical issues in preconception genetic screening
- Karin Schölin Bywall: The value of patient preferences in drug development for rheumatoid arthritis
- Jennifer Viberg: How should incidental findings in biobank research and genome sequencing studies be handled?
Completed
- Ashkan Atry: Is Fair Play Compatible with Doping in Sport?
- Joanna Forsberg: Ethical aspects of biobank research – Individual rights vs. the public good? (PhD 2012)
- Li Jalmsell: At the intersection of curative and palliative treatment in paediatric oncology (PhD 2015)
- Linus Johnsson: Autonomy and trust in biobank research (PhD 2013)
- Malin Masterton: Duties to Past Persons: Moral Standing and Posthumous Interests of Old Human Remains (PhD 2012)
Recently in the media
- En ny etikprövningslag behövs, Dagens Medicin, Debatt, 9 February 2016
- Öppenheten förstör chansen till patent, Svenska Dagbladet Debatt, 21 June 2015
- Stora nätverk med patientdata ger chans att höja vården, Dagens Medicin, Debatt, 12 June 2014
- Integritet är en balansgång, Dagens Medicin, 8 November 2013
Managing genetic risk information
Research generates huge amounts of genetic information. How should we handle it? That is what we are trying to find out in a large international research project.
Rare disease research
RD-Connect is a 7th framework project that aims to build an integrated platform connecting registries, biobanks and clinical bioinformatics for rare disease research. We address the ethical, legal and social issues (ELSI).
Patient preferences
Giving patients a voice in drug development
PREFER is a five year public-private research project where academic researchers and the pharmaceutical industry work together to find out when and where patients want, can and should be involved in drug development
Arthritis risk communication
Euro-TEAM is a 7th framework programme aiming towards early diagnosis and biomarker validation in arthritis management. We are working with risk communication.
Patient prefrences
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Karin Schölin Bywall will look at how rheumatoid arthritis patient preferences can provide added value in regulatory decision making in the drug development process.
Stem cell treatment of type 1 diabetes
We provide ethical and legal analysis and guidance on development of products for treating type 1 diabetes, using cells derived from human embryonic stem cells.
ELSI Commmon Service for BBMRI-ERIC
BBMRI-ERIC aims to increase efficacy and excellence of European bio-medical research. We are part of the ELSI-common service.
ELSI-Service for BBMRI.se
We have run ELSI-Services for BBMRI.se (BioBanking and Molecular Resource Infrastructure of Sweden): a national effort for efficient and automated collection of biological material funded by the Swedish Research Council. Now replaced by Biobank Sweden.
Arthritis: Early treatment
The development of new therapeutic agents against Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and RA-like diseases requires a dynamic interaction between studies in humans and in animal models of disease.
Handling incidental findings
How should we handle incidental findings in biobank and -omics research? Jennifer Viberg Johansson's PhD project examined the arguments for and against disclosure of incidental findings.
Preferences
Cardiovascular risk information
Åsa Grauman will investigate how research participants perceive their personal risk for cardiovascular disease, and their perceptions on cardiovascular risk information.
Communicating risk for heart disease
Sofia Lavén is studying cardiovascular risk communication in primary care and how general practitioners value and communicate lifestyle and genetic risk factors.
Recent publications
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"A perfect society": Swedish policymakers' ethical and social views on preconception expanded carrier screening
Part of Journal of Community Genetics, p. 267-280, 2019.
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Exploring research participants' perceptions of cardiovascular risk information-Room for improvement and empowerment
Part of Patient Education and Counseling, p. 1528-1534, 2019.
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Patient Perspectives on the Value of Patient Preference Information in Regulatory Decision Making: A Qualitative Study in Swedish Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis
Part of Patient, p. 297-305, 2019.
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Short-term mental distress in research participants after receiving cardiovascular risk information
Part of PLoS ONE, 2019.
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Values and value conflicts in implementation and use of preconception expanded carrier screening: an expert interview study
Part of BMC Medical Ethics, 2019.
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Giving Patients’ Preferences a Voice in Medical Treatment Life Cycle: The PREFER Public–Private Project
Part of Patient, p. 263-266, 2017.
Biobank and registry ethics & law
For many years, researchers at CRB have provided constructive advise on how to deal with ethical and legal aspects of research using human tissue material and personal data. We have collaborated with biomedical scientists and published our findings in peer reviewed journals. As a summary of this research we have compiled a list of publications with abstracts. We have grouped them thematically to help you find the ones you might be interested in reading. Our publications deal with ethical frameworks and policy, regulatory aspects of biobank and registry research, informed consent, ethical review, integrity concerns, trust, genetic testing, indicental findings, commercialization, public and patient perceptions, rare diseases, children & biobanks & genetics, and biobank studies.
Biobanks as resources for health
Hansson & Levin (eds) 2003
The potential benefits of biomedicine and biotechnology are considerable, but this is also an area of science and medicine that is sometimes found controversial. Decisions made by scientists, by health care professionals and by policymakers must be well informed and based on knowledge and sound research. Legal experts concerned with public law and intellectual property rights, philosophers and social pharmacists have been collaborating with geneticists, pathologists and doctors in several research projects in order to seek the kind of biobank management that would satisfy the interests of both the research community and the general public as regards new medicines and forms of treatment, whilst protecting the integrity of the individual. A summary of that research is presented in this book.
