Professor Muireann Quigley

• BSc (Medical Science) (St Andrews)
• BSc (Hons) (Manchester)
• MB ChB (Manchester)
• MA (Manchester)
• PhD (Manchester)

Professor Quigley joined Birmingham Law School in January 2018 as Professor of Law, Medicine, and Technology. From August 2015 she held the Chair in Law, Innovation, and Society the University of Newcastle. Prior to that was Senior Lecturer in Biomedical Ethics and Law at the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol, and has worked at the University of Manchester's Centre for Social Ethics and Policy in the School of Law where she held positions as Lecturer in Bioethics and Research Fellow in Bioethics and Law. In a previous life she was a medical doctor, working in General Medicine and A&E, and also as a Screening Physician for a phase I clinical trials company.

She serves on the editorial boards for the journals Medical Law International, the Journal of Medical Ethics, and Law, Technology, and Humans. She is a member of the Wellcome Trust's Early Career Advisory Group. In 2023, Professor Quigley was appointed to the Interim Devices Working Group, which provides independent, external expert input and advice relating to medical devices to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.

Biolaw, property in the body and biomaterials, the use of the behavioural sciences in law and policy, (bio)technologies and law.

Find out more - our PhD Law  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Professor Quigley’s research focuses on bodies, biomaterials and biotechnologies. All three areas are underpinned by an interest in the foundations of and boundaries in law. This feeds into her current research which focused on the legal and ethical challenges regarding persons with attached and implanted medical devices. She is PI on a large Wellcome Trust-funded project: Everyday Cyborgs 2.0: Law’s Boundary-work and Alternative Legal Futures. This project explores the legal and philosophical challenges which arise when attached and implanted medical devices, especially smart devices, are joined with persons.  

As well as these areas, along with Dr Matt Hayler, Professor Quigley is researching the legal, regulatory, and other challenges relating to the therapeutic use of psychedelics (e.g. psilocybin and MDMA). They are looking at the shifting landscapes in respect of these substances, and examining the hurdles involved in bringing these substances to market for therapeutic use in Europe (including the UK).

Professor Quigley's monograph Self-ownership, Property Rights, & the Human Body: A Legal and Philosophical Analysis was published in hardback in 2018 and paperback in 2020 by Cambridge University Press. In it she examines how the law ought to deal with novel challenges regarding the use and control of human biomaterials, arguing that innovation within the law is needed if we are to adequately deal with and regulate the uses of these. She concludes that the law must confront and move boundaries which it has constructed; in particular, those which delineate property from non-property in relation to biomaterials. The book was one of the 2018 Choice Outstanding Academic Title winners.

Current:

• Journal of Medical Ethics, Editorial Board Member (2018- )
• Medical Law International, Editorial Board Member (2017- )

Previous:

• Journal of Medical Ethics, Associate Editor (2013-2016)
• UK Donation Ethics Committee, Member (2012-2016)
• University of Bristol, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry Research Ethics Committee, Chair and Faculty Research Ethics Officer (2014-2015)
• Medical Research Council Reference Group, Member (2013-2014)
• North West e-Health Research Governance Committee, Vice-chair (2009 - 2013).