This issue of the Asian Bioethics Review (ABR) marks a number of important changes.

Having consistently produced a total of 35 issues over 8 years, the NUS Centre for Biomedical Ethics (CBmE) will jointly publish ABR with Springer Nature from this issue onwards. ABR continues to be the flagship publication of CBmE, which is a major centre for Bioethics research in the Asian and Pacific regions. As a collaborating centre for bioethics of the World Health Organization, it has as a main focus, the study of how global ethical values apply in an Asian context, and vice versa. ABR has and continues to be a key research output of CBmE, as well as a firm expression of its commitment to regional capacity building in bioethics scholarship. Now joining some of the most trusted and respected journals that are published by Springer Nature, our intent is to further enhance the potential of ABR in fulfilling its mission and goals. The Springer Nature Group was formed through the merger of Nature Publishing Group, Palgrave Macmillan, Macmillan Education, and Springer Science + Business Media. It is a leading global research, educational, and professional publisher with a long and impressive history: Springer being founded by Julius Springer in 1842, Nature was first published in 1869, and Macmillan Education has been a leading publisher for over 150 years. Following this momentous step, ABR has re-launched its website as follows: www.springer.com/41649. Previously published issues of ABR will continue to be available through Project MUSE and through the website of CBmE.

These changes notwithstanding, ABR remains an Asia-based peer-reviewed international academic journal that is guided by an Editorial Board of leading scholars in bioethics from across all regions of the world. Its core mission is to provide a forum to express and exchange original ideas on all aspects of bioethics, but especially those relevant to Asia and the Pacific. Under the former editorship of Professor Leonardo de Castro, the journal achieved a strong balance between articles from scholars within the region and those from elsewhere, with 299 drawn from countries in Asia, out of a total of 493 published papers. This stress on the support and encouragement of early career scholars in the region will continue as a key role of the journal, ensuring that academic bioethics retains a genuinely international focus, rather than being dominated by either Western or Eastern concerns.

Except for this inaugural double-issue, ABR continues to be published quarterly, with the aim of promoting collaborative research among scholars in Asia or with an interest in Asia and the Pacific, as well as multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary bioethical studies more generally. The papers presented in this issue are original articles, research studies, reports from across the region, and case evaluations. Of these, the first and second 2016 ABR Prize winning papers by Dr. Brent Hyslop (from New Zealand) and Ms. Pankhuri Agarwal (from India), respectively, are published in this issue. Our heartiest congratulations to the winners. In future issues, ABR will also be presenting target articles, commentaries, perspectives, book reviews, and correspondence to the editor. To be sure, ABR welcomes original papers from all countries, particularly those that relate to Asia.

We hope that ABR will continue to draw interest among international scholars working on bioethical issues in biomedicine, healthcare, caregiving and patient support, genetics, law and governance, health systems and policy, science studies, and research. As in previous years, it will continue to provide analyses, perspectives, and insights into new approaches in bioethics, recent changes in biomedical law and policy, developments in capacity building and professional training, and voices or essays from a student’s perspective.

Calvin Wai Loon Ho

Editor-in-Chief,

Asian Bioethics Review

Alastair V. Campbell, FRSE

Visiting Professor in Medical Ethics and Emeritus Director,

Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore