Joy Zhang

I was delighted to be appointed as a member of the European Partnership for Personalised Medicines ( EP PerMed)’ Citizen Engagement Board (CEB) since June. In the past three months, we’ve met online to comment on a pilot public survey (now out in Italy in Italian!).

Apart from virtual meetings, it was wonderful to attend EP PerMed Symposium on Ethical Legal and Social Aspects of Personalised Medicine in Brussels this September and meet many people in person. Professor Mette Nordahl Svendsen’s (University of Copenhagen) talk. in particular, was empirically rich and conceptually stimulating! I also learnt later that, apart from clinical ethics, we share a mutual interest in plant ethics!

The day need with CEB members and representatives from EP PerMed Work Packages convened to discuss key issues concerning citizen engagement activities within EP PerMed.

Key points discussed:

• The Citizen Engagement Strategy for EP PerMed, serving as a guiding document
• Short-term and long-term actionable items for public engagement in personalized medicine
• Existing and potential synergies between Work Packages
• Social and behavioral barriers and facilitators in citizen engagement for personalized medicine

It was truly wonderful to engage with representatives from the European Commission, diverse research institutions and funding agencies, as well as ethicists, lawyers, and precision medicine professionals.