Muireann Quigley

Prof

Accepting PhD Students

PhD projects

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

20062024

Research activity per year

Personal profile

Research interests

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.

Biography

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.

Qualifications

BSc(Med) BSc(Hons) MBChB MA PhD

Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals

In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
  • SDG 16 - Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

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