Expertise/Research fields:

Priya Satalkar has interdisciplinary training in medicine, public health and epidemiology, medical anthropology and bioethics. She completed her PhD at the Institute for Biomedical Ethics in February 2016. Her PhD was on ethical challenges of translational biomedical research of cutting edge medical technology (nanomedicine), with a particular focus on first in human clinical trials.

Since March 2016, she worked as a postdoctoral research fellow on two research projects at IBMB and one research project at Basel Institute for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Department of Clinical Research, University Hospital of Basel. Both of her research projects at the institute were funded through KZS fonds of Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences (SAMW). One of them explored experience and perceptions of researchers in Switzerland regarding research integrity. The other project investigated the scope, organization, practice and ethical challenges of medical tourism to Switzerland. Her project at University Hospital Basel involved qualitative analysis of reasons for and implications of discontinuation of clinical trials due to slow or low participant recruitment. Since January 2019, she is an affiliated research fellow at the institute. She served as an elected representative of doctoral and postdoctoral researchers on ‘Forschungskommission’ of University of Basel from Nov 2016 till Dec 2017.

From Jan 2018 till June 2019, she was a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, King’s College, London. This project was funded through the SNF Early Postdoc. Mobility Fellowship and investigated social translation of oocyte cryopreservation for non-medical reasons in urban India from the perspective of fertility experts. In January 2020, she started her next research project at Bioethics Institute, Gent, Belgium investigating decision making of sub fertile Indian couples towards means of family formation, in particular comparing adoption versus use of assisted reproductive technology. This two year research project is funded through Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual Fellowships by European Research Council and involves four months of secondment to the department of Reproductive Health and Research at WHO, Geneva. Since June 2018, she has been involved as an external expert for ethics reviews of projects funded through European Research Council. 

Interdisciplinary investigation of various aspects of translational biomedical research of novel medical technology and decision making processes involved are the common themes in all her research projects. Though trained in both quantitative and qualitative research methodology, she mainly works with qualitative research methods. She has keen interest in science communication to general public. She has participated in a number of public debates organized within the university of Basel and at other universities within Switzerland. She has also been actively contributing to various publications of the university of Basel such as Uni Nova, Sci Five and Uni Intern and has contributed to various scientific blogs. Since Apr 2018, she has been interviewed as an ethics expert by eight gymnasium students in Basel and St Gallen as part of their Maturaarbeit on various topics such as CRISPR Cas9, induced pluripotent stem cells, pursuit of immortality with aid of technology.

Main Publications: Priya’s significant publications till date are linked to her doctoral research project on first in human trials of nanomedicine, research integrity and ‘right to die’ debate in the Netherlands. She has published in variety of nanomedicine and ethics journals.

Awards and memberships: Priya was selected in the first cohort of Antelope mentorship program of university of Basel in 2014 and again in 2017. She has secured research funding as a PI from the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences, SNF Early Postdoc Mobility Fellowship and ERC Marie Skłodowska Curie Individual European Fellowships. She is a member of European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology and their special interest group on ‘Ethics, Law and Society’ since Sept 2017.