The Global Infectious Disease Threat and Dual use Pathogens

Monday, November 28, 2016
11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
(Pacific)
William J. Perry Conference Room
Encina Hall, Second Floor, Central, C231
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305
Speaker: 
  • Lucy Shapiro

Abstract: The Federal response to dual use pathogens is being actively debated. We are at a critical juncture between free science exploration and government policy. Should science be regulated? We impede discovery and innovation at our peril. Yet, this issue must be viewed through the lens of the looming  infectious disease threat, globalization and its consequences, and environmental challenges such as climate change.

About the Speaker: Lucy Shapiro is a Professor in the Department of Developmental Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine where she holds the Virginia and D. K. Ludwig Chair in Cancer Research and is the Director of Stanford’s Beckman Center for Molecular & Genetic Medicine. She is a member of the scientific advisory boards of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the Pasteur Institute in Paris, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and is a member of the Board of Directors of Pacific Biosciences, Inc. She founded the anti-infectives discovery company, Anacor Pharmaceuticals, that was recently sold to Pfizer. She has co-founded a second company, Boragen LLC, providing novel antifungals for agriculture and the environment. Her studies of the control of the bacterial cell cycle and the establishment of cell fate has yielded fundamental insights into the living cell and garnered her multiple awards including the International Canadian Gairdner Award, the Abbott Lifetime Achievement Award, the Selman Waksman Award and the Horwitz Prize. In 2013 President Obama awarded her the US National Medal of Science. She is an elected member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.