Alena Michaela Buyx (; born 29 September 1977 in Osnabrück) is a German medical ethicist and professor. She was the chair of the German Ethics Council from 2020 until April 2024.
Buyx attended the Johannes-Kepler-Gymnasium in Ibbenbüren. From 1997, she studied medicine, philosophy, sociology and health sciences at the University of Münster, the University of York (UK), and University College London, supported by a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes (German Academic Scholarship Foundation). In 2005, she received her medical doctorate (Dr. med.), obtained her medical license (Approbation), and earned a Magister Artium degree in philosophy and sociology from the University of Münster.
From 2006 to 2008, she worked as a research associate at the Institute for Ethics, History and Theory of Medicine at the University of Münster. In 2008/09, she was an academic scholar at the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health at Harvard Medical School. From 2009 to 2012, she served as assistant director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in London.
She completed her habilitation in Münster in 2013, receiving the venia legendi (teaching qualification) in ethics, history and theory of medicine. From 2012 to 2014, she headed the DFG-Emmy Noether Group "Bioethics and Political Philosophy" at the University of Münster and was a senior research fellow in Public Policy at University College London until 2015.
In 2014, the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel appointed Buyx as Professor of Medical Ethics. She simultaneously served as co-director of the Institute for Experimental Medicine at the University of Kiel. In 2016, she was appointed as a member of the German Ethics Council and became its chair in 2020.
In September 2018, she accepted the call from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) to the W3 professorship for Ethics in Medicine and Health Technologies. She is director of the Institute for the History and Ethics of Medicine at TUM. In 2020, she was elected to the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in the philosophy of science section and the acatech (German Academy of Science and Engineering).
Buyx is committed to science communication and public engagement. Since August 2025, she has been co-moderator (alternating with journalist Stephanie Rohde) of the science discussion program "Nano Talk" on 3sat, the successor format to the interdisciplinary discussion program "Scobel". In 2025, her book Leben und Sterben: Die groÃÂen Fragen ethisch entscheiden (Life and Death: Making Ethical Decisions on the Big Questions) became a Spiegel bestseller.
She regularly gives public lectures on various medical ethics topics and appears in television and other media. She is committed to communicating with the public and making ethical considerations accessible to a broad audience.
As Chair of the German Ethics Council from 2020 to 2024, Buyx played a prominent role during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Ethics Council issued several statements and recommendations on ethical aspects of pandemic management, including on vaccination priorities, solidarity and responsibility, and the protection of vulnerable groups. During this time, she also served on the Federal Government's Corona Expert Council from December 2021 to April 2023.
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Buyx came under criticism for advocating measures such as the widespread 2G rule and a vaccination mandate without questioning them critically. Critics accused her of acting too close to the government and of not representing sufficiently independent positions.
In April 2023, Buyx was one of the 22 personal guests at the ceremony in which former chancellor Angela Merkel was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit for special achievement by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at Schloss Bellevue in Berlin.