Van Rensselaer Potter
Template:Short description Template:Infobox scientist
Van Rensselaer Potter II (12 November, 1911 – September 6, 2001) was an American biochemist, oncologist, and bioethicist. Born in northeast South Dakota, Potter was professor of oncology at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison for more than five decades.<ref>Trosko, J. E., & Pitot, H. C. (2003). In Memoriam: Professor Emeritus Van Rensselaer Potter II (1911–2001). Cancer Research, 63, 1724. Retrieved May 15, 2021.</ref>
Potter is known for coining the widely used term bioethics in 1970, however, German theologian Fritz Jahr had previously coined the term in the 1920s.<ref>Muzur, A. & I. Rinčić. (2015). Two kinds of globality: a comparison of Fritz Jahr and Van Rensselaer Potter's bioethics. Global Bioethics, 26:1, 23-27. Retrieved May 15, 2021.</ref> Peter Whitehouse describes Potter's formulation of bioethics as a "wise integration of biology and values", which arose from his work as a cancer researcher and from the influence of faculty member Aldo Leopold at the University of Wisconsin.<ref>Whitehouse, P. (2001). In Memoriam: Van Rensselaer Potter: The Original Bioethicist. The Hastings Center Report, 31(6), 12-12. Retrieved May 16, 2021.</ref>
Bioethics is linked to environmental ethics and is separate from biomedical ethics.<ref>Pitot, H. C., Drinkwater, N. R., & Kasper, C. B. (2002, April 1). Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the Death of Professor Emeritus Van Rensselaer Potter II. McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research. University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. Retrieved May 15, 2021.</ref> Because of this confusion (and appropriation of the term in medicine), Potter chose to use the term global bioethics in 1988.<ref>Cascais, A.F. (1997). Bioethics: History, Scope, Object. Global Bioethics. 10:1-4, 9-24. Retrieved May 15, 2021.</ref> He was an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, The president of the American Society of Cell Biology in 1965, and the president of the American Association for Cancer Research in 1974.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
AwardsEdit
- Bristol-Myers Squibb Awards (1981)
- Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry (1947)
- List of Ten Outstanding Young Americans (1945)
PublicationsEdit
PopularEdit
- Bioethics: Bridge to the Future (Prentice-Hall, 1971)
- Global Bioethics: Building on the Leopold Legacy (Michigan State Univ Pr 1988) Template:ISBN
See alsoEdit
ReferencesEdit
Further readingEdit
- Lower, G. (2001). Van Rensselaer Potter—Ad memoriam. Global Bioethics, 14(4), 31–32. Retrieved May 15, 2021.
- Whitehouse, P. J. (2002). Van Rensselaer Potter: An Intellectual Memoir. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 11(4), 331–334. Retrieved May 15, 2021.