Van Rensselaer Potter II (August 27, 1911 – September 6, 2001) was an American biochemist, oncologist, and bioethicist. Born in northeast

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large porti ...

, Potter was professor of

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγκος (''� ...

at the McArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

for more than five decades. Potter is known for coining the widely used term ''

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, m ...

'' in 1970, however, German theologian Fritz Jahr had previously coined the term in the 1920s. 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. Bioethics is linked to

environmental ethics In environmental philosophy, environmental ethics is an established field of practical philosophy "which reconstructs the essential types of argumentation that can be made for protecting natural entities and the sustainable use of natural resourc ...

and is separate from biomedical ethics. Because of this confusion (and appropriation of the term in medicine), Potter chose to use the term '' global bioethics'' in 1988. 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.

Awards

Bristol-Myers Squibb Awards Between 1977 and 2006, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation presented annual awards of US$50,000 to scientists for distinguished achievements in fields such as cancer, infectious disease, neuroscience, nutrition, and cardiovascular disease. The rec ...

(1981) *

Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry The Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, formerly known as the Paul-Lewis Award in Enzyme Chemistry was established in 1945. Consisting of a gold medal and honorarium, its purpose is to stimulate fundamental research in enzyme chemistry by scientists ...

(1947) * List of Ten Outstanding Young Americans (1945)

Awards

Publications

Popular

See also

References

Further reading