CANCELED: Developments in Genome Editing Politics and Policy

CISAC will be canceling all public events and seminars until at least April 5th due to the ongoing developments associated with COVID-19.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About this Event: Somatic (i.e. non-heritable) genome editing is already in clinical trials for the treatment of diseases ranging from certain cancers to sickle cell anemia.  But public fascination has largely focused on germline editing, especially with the startling late 2018 announcement that human embryos had been edited and then used for a pregnancy resulting in two live-born girls.  This talk will highlight key scientific and political responses since that announcement, and offer insights into ongoing debates and ongoing work by international commissions looking at whether there are any conditions under which such experiments could be done responsibly in the future.

About the Speaker:

R. Alta Charo, J.D., is a 2019-2020 Berggruen Fellow at the Stanford Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences and the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin.  She was co-chair of the National Academies’ 2017 report on human genome editing, and a member of the organizing committee for the 2019 international summit on genome editing in Hong Kong.  At present, she serves on the  World Health Organization committee developing global governance standards for genome editing, and on the steering committee of the International Society for Stem Cell Research effort to revise and expand ethical guidelines for research and development of both heritable and non-heritable human genome editing.