President Bush announced Thursday that he will name Edmund Pellegrino, M.D., an adjunct philosophy professor and professor emeritus of medicine and medical ethics at Georgetown, to chair the President’s Council on Bioethics.

“Dr. Pellegrino has an unparalleled combination of experience in medicine, academic administration and medical ethics,” Research Associate Professor Fr. Kevin FitzGerald, S.J., said

“With him as chair,” FitzGerald added, “I have great confidence that this Council will build upon the impressive foundation of bioethical reflection they have created and continue to serve well the president and the nation as we wrestle with the enormous challenges of 21st-century health care, biotechnology and research.”

The President’s Council on Bioethics was created in November 2001 to address the ethical implications of modern medicine and advise the president on prominent ethical issues such as stem-cell research, cloning, end-of-life issues and assisted reproduction.

Pellegrino has prior experience counseling others on modern medical ethics. In 2004, he was named to the International Bioethics Committee of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, or UNESCO.

As an active member of the Georgetown faculty, Pellegrino also teaches medicine and bioethics while conducting research, writing and attending to his patients. In addition, he is a former director of Georgetown’s Center for Advanced Study of Ethics and founder of its Center for Clinical Bioethics.

“Dr. Pellegrino teaches by example and witnesses to the virtues he prizes in health care,” Carol Taylor, director of the Center for Clinical Bioethics, said. “He will bring to the Council wisdom, respectful discourse and a strong commitment to making health care work for the most vulnerable. All of us here at the Center have been receiving congratulatory phone calls and e-mail messages all week from friends and colleagues around the world.”

Pellegrino has also served as president of Catholic University, president and chairman of the Yale-New Haven Medical Center, chancellor and vice president of health affairs at the University of Tennessee, founding chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University of Kentucky, and the dean of the School of Medicine at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He has also published more than 550 articles on medical science, philosophy and ethics, according to a university press release.

Pellegrino follows in the footsteps of Georgetown Professor Alfonso Gomez-Lobo, who was named to the President’s Council of Bioethics in 2002. He replaces current Chairman Leon Kass.