Biography

Dr. Utako Barnikol is an ethicist and clinician. She studied philosophy and medicine at the Georg-August-University Gottingen and the Heinrich-Heine-University Dusseldorf. She received her medical license on 9 November 2004 in Dusseldorf. On 28 September 2005 she received her doctorate with the highest honors from the University of Cologne. Her dissertation ‘Visually evoked responses of cortical areas V1/V2 and V5/MT after chessboard pattern reverse stimulation: magnetoencephalographic studies in combination with cytoarchitectonical probability maps’ was awarded the highest marks with distinction and published as a book by the publishing house at the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

During her doctoral research, Dr. Barnikol was integrated into basic scientific experimental methods at the Max Planck Institute and at the same time worked for many years as a clinical scientist in self-regulatory science management at the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. She has worked abroad at the University of Oxford and in Tokio (Keio University).

Dr. Barnikol is the inventor of a US patent and the co-inventor of two EU patents for clinical applications. In 2008, as a continuation of her clinical-scientific translation work she was awarded a permanent position at the Medical Faculty of the University of Cologne. From 2009 to 2013, she was initially the deputy head of a research group and subsequently the head of two working groups on applied research.

After being awarded the title of neurologist and psychiatrist on 14 March 2013 by the State Chamber of Doctors in Dusseldorf, Dr. Barnikol was appointed as a senior research doctor.

Her work on the topic of treatment ethics, ‘Neuropsychiatric grace period – between symptoms and diagnosis’, performed together with the Medical Chamber of North RhineWestphalia and the Helmholtz Association, had already attracted attention.

She subsequently became head of the research group on clinical neuroethics in February 2014. In the same year the dean, Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Thomas Krieg, MD, invited her to answer socio-political questions at the Cologne location as part of the collaboration with the research centre on ethics. This initiative, performed with the executive board of the Medical Chamber of North Rhine-Westphalia together with Ulrich Langenberg, the head of the Department on General Questions in Healthcare, Social and Occupational Policy and Prof. Dieter Birnbacher, at that time Chairman of the Central Ethics Committee (ZEKO) of the German Medical Association in Berlin, attracted further attention in the field of joint decision-making (Dtsch Ärztebl 2015 & Prädiktive Medizin Prädiktive Medizin- MedR 2016).

In November 2017, Dr. Barnikol became responsible for the Clearing Unit Ethics at the University of Cologne. The main focus of the Clearing Unit Ethics is on applied ethics in precision oncology (Research Group of Applied Ethics for Precision Oncology at the CIO Cologne, AEPO). AEPO and the Clearing Unit Ethics are affiliated with the Hospital 1 for Internal Medicine, led by Prof. Michael Hallek, MD, Director of the CIO Cologne Bonn and voting member of the CIO Steering Committee, the highest common decision-making panel within the two-location cancer centre CIO Cologne Bonn.

Research interests

• Medical decision making and ethics of action; supported autonomy at the limits of life (together with Ulrich Langenberg, managing doctor, North Rhine Medical Chamber, Prof. Dieter Birnbacher, PhD, Dusseldorf)
• Advance research planning (together with Prof Dr. iur. Susanne Beck, Hannover & Prof Heiner Fangerau, MD, Prof. Dr. h.c. Dieter Birnbacher, PhD, Dusseldorf)
• Supported decision making (together with Prof. Dr. phil. Dr. h.c. Dieter Birnbacher, Ulrich Langenberg, Dusseldorf)
• Levels of self-determination in oncological diseases (together with Prof. Dr. h.c. Dieter Birnbacher, PhD Düsseldorf)
• Categorisations and diagnostic model design in methodology, DSM-5 (Prof. Prof. h.c. Dr. h.c. Hans-Jürgen Möller, MD, Munich)
• Predictive medicine – legal ethics perspectives (together with Prof. Dr. iur. Susanne Beck, Hannover, Prof. Heiner Fangerau, MD, Ulrich Langenberg, Dr. iur. Dirk Schulenburg, and Prof. Dr. h.c. Dieter Birnbacher, PhD, Dusseldorf)

Economic Committees

• since 05/2021 Member of the Steering Committee „Strategic Project Investment Planning“ , University Hospital Cologne
• since 12/2020 Member of the Economic Committee, University Hospital Cologne

Academic Committees and Senate Panels

• elected member of the medical faculty (S1) at the university senate council for the legislature 2021-2023
• elected first alternate member of the senate core panel (N1) at the university senate council for the legislature 2021-2023
• 06/2021 Deputy Delegate in the German Medical Assembly 2021 (125. German Medical Assembly)
• since 12/2019 elected Member of the Hospital Commission of the State 
• Chamber of Physicians of North Rhine Member
• since 12/2019 Member of the Ad hoc-Commissions of the State Chamber of Physicians of 
  North Rhine:
  • Drug Regulation and Drug Treatment Safety
  • Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics
• 12/2019 Deputy Delegate in the German Medical Assembly 2020 (124. German Medical Assembly)
• since 07/2019 elected Member of the Chamber Meeting at the Medical Association of North Rhine, Legislative Period 2019-2024
• elected alternate member of the tenure-faculty council of the medical faculty
• elected alternate member of the senate core panel (N4) at the university senate council for the legislature 2019/2021
• 10/2018 member of the election board of the core faculty of the medical faculty, representative of the academical research election in the medical faculty council
• Since 12/2015 alternate member of the education and examination board for the doctoral program in the health sciences