US President Barack Obama is looking to float like a butterfly on complex social and legal questions such as personalized medicine, and sting like a bee on issues of scientific integrity and conflicts of interest with the appointment of Lonnie Ali, the wife of retired boxing legend Muhammad Ali, to his bioethics commission.

Ali and nine other individuals named yesterday by Obama join chair Amy Gutmann, president of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and vice-chair James Wagner, president of Emory University in Atlanta to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. Gutmann and Wagner were tapped late last year after the President had dissolved the previous council last June.

Ali, an outspoken advocate for Parkinson’s disease — which her husband, often known simply as ‘The Greatest’, was diagnosed with more than 25 years ago — stands out as the only non-scientist or academic on the council. A full list of commission members can be found in the White House’s press release.

Image of Lonnie Ali via Kentucky.gov