R. Alta Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law & Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law and Medical Schools. She is a member of the Institute of Medicine, and has served on the NAS Board on Life Science and IOM Board on Population Health, where she helped draft reports on FDA's drug safety system; the ethics of transnational AIDS trials; preventing terrorist use of biotechnology research; and managing the smallpox vaccine program. She co-chairs the National Academies' human embryonic stem cell research committee, and helped draft its national research guidelines. She was a member of the NIH Human Embryo Research Panel and President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and more recently served on the HHS review for President Obama’s transition team, focusing particularly on FDA, NIH, stem cell policy and reproductive health. Charo writes primarily on reproductive rights, medical ethics, and regulation of medical applications of biotechnology.