Bioethics Research Library Archives

The BRL Archives is committed to collecting, preserving, and providing access to materials that document the history of bioethics as a field and its impact on society. We seek to provide historical information and research services that support the mission and ongoing operations of Georgetown University, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, and other institutions affiliated with the University.

The BRL Archives was established in 1986 with the hiring of the first bioethics archivist at the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (today known as the Bioethics Research Library). Our initial holdings included the records of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research and the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and in Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Our holdings have since expanded to include records of other major bioethical commissions, oral histories documenting the development of the field of bioethics, the records of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics (KIE), and the papers of former KIE staff and scholars such as Dr. Edmund D. Pellegrino.