Profile picture
Administrative data

Gaia Barazzetti

gaia.barazzetti@epfl.ch +41 21 693 48 91 https://www.epfl.ch/research/funding/research-office/team/

Nationality: Italian and Swiss

EPFL AVP-R REO
BI A2 407 (Bâtiment BI)
Station 7
1015 Lausanne

Expertise

I am a moral philosopher with expertise in the fields of ethics and science and technology policy. I have extensive experience in research ethics compliance and a broad knowledge of the ethical and regulatory frameworks applicable to various areas of research, including research involving human subjects, animal research, research integrity, data management, data protection, pharmaceuticals and medical devices, conflicts of interests, and dual-use research.
My research works address issues of public interest in the areas of biomedical research, healthcare innovation, digitalization, sustainability and emerging technologies, with a strong commitment to stakeholder and public engagement, policy impact, and public outreach.
My teaching activities aim to improve student's abilities to assess and address ethical issues in research and to improve compliance with the ethical standards.

Mission

As Research Ethics Compliance Officer my mission is to support EPFL research community in all ethics related issues of research projects.
My responsibilities are threefold:
  • Ensuring the proper implementation of ethics guidance at all steps of research, from the assessment of ethical issues, to ethics authorization applications, to research ethics policy development.
  • Liasing with the internal Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) and fostering collaboration with external institutional partners (cantonal ethics commissions, funding bodies, etc.).
  • Raising awareness of ethical standards in research and promoting an ethical culture of compliance at EPFL.

Contact point

research@epfl.ch
Following my PhD in philosophy and two-years postdoc in biomedical ethics, I have held the positions of Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and the Faculty of Biology and Medicine, and Senior Researcher in The ColLaboratory of the University of Lausanne, where my work focused primarily on the ethics and policy of research and on public engagement with science.
I have a particular interest in engineering ethics and have developed undergraduate and postgraduate training in this field at EPFL, in collaboration with the Social and Human Sciences (SHS) Programme of the College of Humanities, the School of Life Sciences and the Research Office.
Since 2008, I have served as a member in research ethics committees and as an ethics expert in working groups at the cantonal, national and international level. My role as an ethics advisor on these bodies has been to enable the discussion and management of practical ethical queries in research, to contribute to the interpretation and application of the relevant ethical and regulatory frameworks, and assist with the elaboration of policies, guidelines and procedures.

Selected publications

Research participant perceptions of personal utility in disclosure of individual research results from genomic analysis

Bogaert B., Crevier M.J., Roth C., Jox R., Barazzetti G.
Published in Journal of Community Genetics 15 (2024):529-538 in

When good science can turn out bad: Addressing dual-use issues in bioethics education

Barazzetti, G.
Published in Bioethica Forum 14(1) 2021: 94-99 in

Making personalized medicine ethical: A critical examination of the new promises of personalized health in Switzerland

Barazzetti G., Bühler N., Audétat M., Kaufmann A.
Published in Science and Public Policy 48(6) 2021: 818-828 in

Dossier électronique du patient: coffre-fort, poubelle à pdf, ou partenariat innovant entre professionnels et patients?

Barazzetti G., Bugnon B., Von Plessen C., Bischoff T., Kaufmann A.
Published in Revue Médicale Suisse 17 2021: 230-233 in

Citizen responses to government restrictions in Switzerland during the COVID-19 pandemic: cross-sectional

Selby K., Durand M.-A., Gouveia A., Bosisio F., Barazzetti G., Hostettler M., D’Acremont V., Kaufmann A., von Plessen C.
Published in JMIR 4(12) 2020: e20871 in

Broad consent in practice: Lessons learned from a hospital-based biobank for prospective research on genomic and medical data

Bosisio F., Barazzetti G., Koutaissoff D., Spencer B.
Published in European Journal of Human Genetics 28(7) 2020: 915-924 in

Adapting preclinical benchmarks for first-in-human trials of hESC- based therapies

Barazzetti G., Hurst S., Mauron A.
Published in Stem Cells Translational Medicine 5(8) 2016: 1058-1066 in