Leon Kass is one of the nation's leading experts on medical ethics.

In 2001, President Bush appointed Kass chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics.

His early research in molecular biology led him to contemplate the human consequences of science, an area of inquiry in which he has been engaged for more than 30 years.

Kass has written Toward a More Natural Science: Biology and Human Affairs, The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, The Ethics of Human Cloning (with James Wilson), and the anthology Wing to Wing, Oar to Oar: Readings on Courting and Marrying, which he edited with his wife and fellow University faculty member, Amy Kass.

A Chicago native, Kass earned his S.B. and M.D. degrees at the University. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Harvard University.

He began his professional career as a member of the U.S. Public Heath Service, serving as a researcher in molecular biology at the National Institutes of Health.