The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is pleased to announce that Prof. James Giordano, PhD, Senior Fellow, Member of the Board of Regents, and Director of the Center for Neurotechnology Studies, has won the 2012 Klaus Reichert Award for Medical Philosophy. Prof. Giordano shares the award with Dr. Roland Benedikter of Stanford University. Dr. Benedikter is also an Academic Fellow of the Potomac Institute, and  Giordano is also Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program at the Center for Clinical Bioethics, and Professor of Integrative Physiology at the Georgetown University Medical Center, Washington, DC. As well, he is William H. and Ruth Crane Schaefer Visiting Professor at Gallaudet University, Washington, DC, and 2011-2012 Fulbright Professor of Neuroscience and Neuroethics at the Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich Germany.

As a result of the award, Prof. Giordano has been honored with an invitation from the President of the European Academy of Arts and Sciences to present a Klaus Reichert lecture at the Academy in Vienna, Austria. He has also been invited to present special Reichert lectures at the University of Halle in Germany, and to Munich's Consortium for Science, Technology and the Humanities at the Ludwig Maximilians University.

The award is given by the Center for Medical Philosophy in Karlsruhe, Germany, and has been awarded to Profs. Giordano and Benedikter in honor of their outstanding merits in the field of medical ethics, for advancing the debate on issues at the intersection of contemporary politics, sociology, ethics and medicine through more than a dozen world class publications, and in particular for the team's efforts to inform and and clarify international debate about the future of the human being in times of "transhumanism" and "hyper-technologization." The award is the most highly regarded academic award of his genre in Germany. The award ceremony is to be held on October 6, 2012 in Karlsruhe. In the award speech "What future for the human being: Humanism or Transhumanism? Issues at the interplay between technology, ethics and politics," Giordano and Benedikter will give an overview of the current "global systemic shift," its trend towards a "neuromorphosis" of global culture (two notions co-coined by them) and the future of the human being in the age of "transhumanism" and invasive and non-invasive new technologies.

Profs. Benedikter and Giordano are long-time colleagues with more than a dozen joint publications in high-impact factor-rated international journals resulting from their ongoing work at Georgetown University, the Center for Neurotechnology Studies of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, the Human Science Center of Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany, and other venues.

Prof. Giordano lives in Alexandria, Virginia, USA and Bad Tölz, Germany with his wife, Sherry, an editor and naturalist. Benedikter resides in Stanford California, USA and Bosen-Bolzano, Süd Tirol with his wife Judith, an educator, and daughter Ariadne.