Welcome!

My name is Charles Weijer (pronounced VEY-er). I am a bioethicist and professor at Western University in London, Canada who specializes in research ethics.

Together with an interdisciplinary team of colleagues and trainees, I explore ethical issues in randomized controlled trials, human challenge studies, and organ donation.

In the news

November 28, 2023

These volunteers want to be infected with disease to aid research — will their altruism help?

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November 15, 2023

Concerns over informed consent for pregnant women in Pfizer’s RSV vaccine trial

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October 20, 2022

New transplant procedure challenges ethics rules

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March 23, 2021

COVID-19 trial infecting healthy volunteers needs full transparency, say campaigners

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February 18, 2021

The UK is infecting people with COVID-19 for science. Is it worth it?

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December 27, 2020

Ethics dumping: colonial thinking in science.

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New publications

Organ procurement organizations should develop policy regarding surrogate consent for normothermic regional perfusion

Sowing "seeds of trust": How trust in normothermic regional perfusion is built in a continuum of care

Identifying ethical issues in stepped-wedge cluster randomized trials to inform the Ottawa Statement update: a systematic review of trials published 2016-2022

Are pragmatism and ethical protections in clinical trials a zero-sum game?

Navigating the consent river: questions to consider before waiving consent requirements in pragmatic cluster randomised trials

Ethical challenges associated with pragmatic and cluster RCTs

Recent talks

Ethical considerations in

normothermic regional perfusion

World Congress of Intensive and Critical Care

September 15, 2025

Normothermic regional perfusion may substantially improve wait times for for organ transplantation and recipient outcomes, but ethical issues must be resolved. In this talk, I discuss our group's work to map and address ethical issues posed by NRP in Canada.

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