Emeritus Professor Gareth Jones

Research

Research interests include human anatomy and ethics, including uses of human cadavers and tissues; neuroethics, including neuroimaging and dementia; stem cell technology, including induced pluripotent stem cells; artificial reproductive technologies, including developmental issues; enhancement and therapy; bioethics and theology.

Professor Jones has had a long involvement in anatomy. Until recent times little attention was given to any ethical dimensions surrounding the acquisition of bodies, such as the use of unclaimed bodies and bodies of the mentally ill. More recently there has been intense interest in retention of body parts, and this raises tensions between issues of informed consent and the availability of material for research. The extensive use of plastinated human material in teaching and research also raises difficult ethical questions, especially in terms of large public exhibitions of plastinated cadavers. Other questions of interest concern definitions of brain death and the status of the human embryo, the moral status of the blastocyst. Questions such as these can only be addressed by reference to the human body, in embryological, neurobiological and cell biological terms.