About the event

Registration & Coffee

9:00 AM - 9:30 AM

Foundational Principles and Best Practice

9:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Prof Lucy Frith (University of Manchester) • Prof Angela Ballantyne (University of Otago)

What PPIE is really for, whose voices get included or excluded, and how to build genuine involvement - not tokenism - into a study from design through dissemination. Case-based, with small-group work throughout.

Lunch

12:30PM - 1:30PM

Should Al Simulate Patients and the Public? Can It Help Citizen Science?

1:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Dr Sebastian Porsdam Mann (University of Copenhagen) • Dr Alessandro Sparacio (A*STAR) • chaired by Sankalpa Ghose (NUS)

A closer look at two open questions for PPIE: whether Al- simulated patient and public personas can genuinely stand in for real voices in research validation, and whether Al can meaningfully expand citizen science and participation — without tipping into “vibe scholarship.” Includes a case-based small-group activity.

The speakers

Lucy Frith is Professor of Bioethics and Health Research, Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, University of Manchester. She conducts research at the interface of bioethics and social science with research interests in: empirical bioethics; reproductive technologies; organisational ethics; public involvement in healthcare; and the use of evidence in practice and policy. She is principal investigator on the UKRI ESRC funded project ConnecteDNA that is exploring how people involved in donor conception both use and are impacted by the rise in online DNA testing, and the UKRI AHRC Reset Ethics Project that explored the ethical issues raised by managing non-Covid paediatric and maternity care during the Covid pandemic.

Angela Ballantyne is Professor of Bioethics at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, Pōneke (University of Otago, Wellington), New Zealand. She is an internationally recognised scholar in bioethics, research ethics, and health data governance. Her research examines how health systems can responsibly harness data, AI, and medical research while promoting equity, fairness and public trust. She has led influential work on learning health systems, public-private data partnerships, precision medicine governance, and public attitudes towards health data use, including collaborative projects in Singapore and internationally.

Sebastian Porsdam Mann is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies in Bioscience Innovation Law at the University of Copenhagen and a Visiting Associate Professor at Centre for Biomedical Ethics, NUS Medicine. His background is in philosophy, neuroscience, applied ethics (BA, PhD, University of Cambridge) and international human rights law (DPhil pending, University of Oxford). He has held postdoctoral positions at Harvard Medical School and the Universities of Oxford and Copenhagen, the latter supported by a personal grant by the Carlsberg Foundation. His work focuses on the practical potential and regulatory conditions necessary for novel technologies to facilitate scientific progress and normative goals, with a focus on blockchain, generative artificial intelligence, and the human right to science. He is co-author/editor, recently, of The Right to Science: Then and Now (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and Scientific Freedom: The Heart of the Right to Science (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), and has published widely across scientific, medical, and philosophical journals.

Alessandro Sparacio is a Research Scientist at the A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential, where his work focuses on advancing the field of mental health through research on cognition, mood and stress. He orchestrates the design of clinical studies and crafts meticulous protocols to ensure scientific integrity and operational feasibility. His interdisciplinary background has led him to combine rigorous scientific methods with innovative digital technologies to create accessible, evidence-based solutions for improving global mental well-being.