Dr. Alice Virani

Dr. Alice Virani is the Director of the Clinical Ethics Service for the Provincial Health Service Authority of British Columbia and a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Genetics at the University of British Columbia (UBC). Through her daily work, she engages with clinical and organizational issues in multiple settings including transplant, pediatrics, forensic psychiatry, women’s health, and the public health realm. She enjoys teaching Bioethics in a number of graduate, clinical, and public settings, and is developing ethics capacity for healthcare providers and researchers through online learning modules and podcasts. She spent nine years serving as the Ethicist on a number of different Research Ethics Boards in BC and recently served on the Panel of Research Ethics material incidental findings sub-committee. Her research interests relate to pediatric and adolescent bioethics, public health ethics, and the many ethical issues inherent within clinical practice and research in genetic and genomic medicine including gene editing, biobanking, and direct to consumer genetic testing.

Before moving into Ethics, Alice was a genetic counselor in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in New York. She has a Masters in Human Sciences from Oxford University, a Masters in Genetic Counseling from Sarah Lawrence College, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and a PhD in Genetics and Ethics from UBC. Alice has done consulting work for clients such as the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Health Canada.