Program on Science, Technology and Society at Harvard

Limits of Genetic Manipulation

Dr. Stuart Newman

New York Medical College

December 14, 2023,
Harvard Kennedy School

Abstract

Nearly 50 years after the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, profound ethical and political questions remain about the governance of genetic engineering and enhancement, as technologies capable of altering the meaning and integrity of human life. The Observatory aims to cultivate conversations that widen the range of questions asked of such technologies. The event looks back to look forward. It focuses on the need to think seriously and in new ways about the notion of limits: what moral and experiential repertoires have people drawn upon as they debate limits on technological research and its applications; what major differences can one identify in thinking about these limits; and how, if at all, can productive conversations be constructed across sociocultural and disciplinary divides? Most particularly, we ask what lessons can be learned from some early critics of genetic engineering and their notions of limits on the development and deployment of this technology?

Panel

Dr. Diane Paul

Professor Emerita in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts, Boston

Dr. Jeantine E. Lunshof

Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering