The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) will hold a meeting on heritable human germline modification on December 1-3, 2015 in Washington, D.C. Invitations to the NAS meeting to individuals starting going out last week.
The upcoming NAS meeting seeks to address these issues and discuss the possibility of a moratorium on clinical use of genetic modification technology. It could play a crucial role in shaping both national and global policy on human genetic modification.
The meeting was sparked in part by rising concerns over the possibility that some scientists may race ahead to clinical use of new gene editing technologies such as CRISPR-Cas9. Such clinical use of human genetic modification technology could pose serious risks to both individuals and to science. Others have the opposite view and favor allowing heritable human editing to proceed as a natural course of science delineated only by existing regulations rather than a moratorium. An international meeting would have the goal to reach consensus on prudent policy in this area, just as the 1975 Asilomar meeting did on genetic engineering.
The NAS has announced that both the Royal Society and the Chinese Academy of Sciences are partnering on the new 2015 meeting. This is a positive step as it will increase the diverse, global views on the key issues. Leaders of both the new partners indicated their enthusiasm for the meeting:
“Human gene editing offers great promise for improving human health and well-being but it also raises significant ethical and societal issues,” said Royal Society President Paul Nurse. “It is vital that we have a well-informed international debate about the potential benefits and risks, and this summit can hopefully set the tone for that discussion.”
Chinese Academy of Sciences President Chunli Bai said, “Both Chinese scientists and the government are aware of the pros and cons of human gene editing. CAS scientists have organized a panel discussion and coordinated with related government agencies for regulatory policies on this issue. We would like to work together with international communities for the proper regulation and application of such technology.”
One issue, however, is whether it could be a challenge for a meeting with such a broad spectrum of views and constituents to reach a focused consensus.
Details on the meeting are starting to come out on social media too.
Bioethicist Tetsuya Ishii tweeted about his invite to the meeting.
I got invitation to International Summit on Human Gene Editing by US NAS. @Cyranoski @antonioregalado
— 石井哲也 Tetsuya Ishii (Hokkaido Univ.) (@TetsuyaIshii) September 10, 2015
From the NAS website here are the meeting organizers:
- David Baltimore (chair), president emeritus and Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena United States
- Françoise Baylis, professor and Canada Research Chair in Bioethics and Philosophy, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia Canada
- Paul Berg, Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor Emeritus and director emeritus, Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif. United States
- George Q. Daley, Samuel E. Lux IV Professor of Hematology and Oncology, and director, Stem Cell Transplantation Program, Boston Children’s Hospital and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston United States
- Jennifer A. Doudna, investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute; and professor, department of molecular and cell biology, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and department of chemistry, University of California, Berkeley United States
- Eric S. Lander, president and director, The Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Cambridge, Mass. United States
- Robin Lovell-Badge, group leader and head, division of stem cell biology and developmental genetics, The Francis Crick Institute, London United Kingdom
- Pilar Ossorio, professor of law and bioethics, University of Wisconsin; and ethics scholar, Morgridge Institute for Research, Madison United States
- Duanqing Pei, professor and director general, Guangzhou Institutes of Biomedicine and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou China
- Adrian Thrasher, professor of paediatric immunology, University College London United Kingdom
- Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, professor emeritus and director emeritus, Gene Center, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich Germany
- Qi Zhou, professor and deputy director, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing China
I would indeed be surprised if a gender counterbalance was achieved in the invitations. Still, I am thrilled with the convening for civil discourse on these edgy topics.
Where can this take us with such a huge gender imbalance?
Hi Justine,
Good point.
These are the organizers with a 9 male/3 female imbalance.
At this point, the hope has to be that they are cognizant of needing balance in who they invite to participate, although the invitations are already sent from what I understand.
Paul
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