Paul Root Wolpe,Ph.D., is a Fellow of the Center of Bioethics of the University of Pennsylvania, where he holds faculty appointments in the Departments of Psychiatry and Sociology. He is also a Senior Fellow of Penn’s Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. After receiving his Ph.D. in Medical Sociology from Yale, he spent five years as the Director of Research for the Department of Psychiatry at Jefferson Medical College. Dr. Wolpe is the coauthor (with J. Carroll) of the textbook Sexuality and Gender in Society (New York: HarperCollins, 1996) and has published many articles, including “The Triumph of Autonomy in American Medical Ethics: A Sociological View,” in R. DeVries and J. Subedi, eds., Bioethics and Society: Sociological Investigations of the Enterprise of Bioethics (New York: Prentice Hall, 1998); “Expert Bioethics, Public Discourse, and the Case of Embryonic Stem Cells,” in K. Lebacqz, T. Peters, M. Mendiola, and E. Young, eds., Mortal Selves, Immortal Cells: Ethical Issues in Human Stem Cell Research (in preparation); and “If I Am Only My Genes, What Am I? Genetic Essentialism and a Jewish Response,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 1997 7(3): 213-30. Dr. Wolpe serves as a member of the American Association of Health Plans’ Ethics Advisory group and Duke University’s Umbilical Cord Blood Working Group, and he is the Sociologist-in-Residence for the Brain Tumor Foundation. He lectures nationally and internationally to professional and lay audiences on issues of bioethics and medical sociology and is a consultant to industry on ethical issues. Dr. Wolpe currently focuses on sociological and cultural issues in bioethics, concentrating on genetics, death and dying, informed consent, psychiatry and mental illness, sexuality and reproduction, cultural and religious influences on medical ethics, and the evolving healthcare system.