Among her achievements, she ensured a more independent legal status for the National Bioethics Committees (NBC); contributed to define their mission as promoters of a bioethics culture; encouraged them to provide the society and decision-makers with the necessary elements to understand and tackle ethical issues. She drafted the first national guidelines for Research Ethics Committees and Clinical Bioethics Committees and promoted the law that established and differentiated both types of committees (law approved and currently in vigour). She is the founder of FLACEIS (Latin American Forum of Ethics Committees in Health Research) and was the Chairperson (2000-2006). She was a member of the international expert group, TDR-WHO: drafting and translating Operational Guidelines for Ethics Committees. She was Mexico´s representative at the meetings of the Intergovernmental Bioethics Committee to discuss UNESCO’s Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights. Since September 2009, Dafna Feinholz is the Chief of the Bioethics and Ethics of Science Section, within UNESCO’s Social and Human Science Sector. In this capacity, she leads different activities aiming at reinforcing capacities of Member States to manage bioethical challenges and to identify the ethical, legal and social implications of cutting-edge science, emerging technologies and their application for sustainable development, and promoting awareness-raising and public debate.
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