Stem Cell Ethics: Synthetic Embryos In Search of Limits in the Age of Genome Editing: Human Integrity at the Frontiers of Engineering Life

This workshop, the second in a series, explores the narratives of promise, purpose, and perfectibility that animate frontiers developments in biotechnology. 

Southern California Stem Cell Seminar Series: Hertzberg Schechter Lecture

"Ex Utero Embryogenesis: Naive Pluripotent Stem-cells-derived Embryoid Models (SEMs)" Jacob Hanna, Weizmann Institute of Science in Isreal

Panel 1: Limits of Research Moderator: J. Benjamin Hurlburt, ASU

Panelists: 

Jacob Hanna, Weizmann Institute of Science

Alysson Muotri, UC San Diego

Matthew Porteus, Stanford University

Panel 2: Cosmopolitan Ethics in Public Deliberation Moderator: Krishanu Saha, U. of Wisconsin-Madison

Panelists:

Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, Emory University

Reuven Brandt, UC San Diego

John Evans, UC San Diego

Nasser Zakariya, UC Berkeley

Panel 3: Limits of Public Governance Moderator: John Evans, UC San Diego

Keynote: Carrie Wolinetz, NIH

Panelists:

Maria Millan, CIRM

Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard University

Derek Thompson, The Atlantic & The Ringer

Event Description:

This workshop, the second in a series, explores the narratives of promise, purpose, and perfectibility that animate frontiers developments in biotechnology. These narratives have circulated widely around technologies that intervene in human development in the name of doing nature better. Examples include genome-edited babies, stem cell-derived synthetic embryos, and human neuronal systems grown in vitro. Those leading these strides in bioengineering are often aware of a need to question, and if possible reaffirm, the nature of and moral justification for limits on scientific research and intervention. Recent years have seen the emergence of a global patchwork of laws, policies, recommendations, proposals, conventions, and declarations that respond to these concerns by defining and delimiting the field of permissible research that intervenes in human development and reproduction.

These Observatory workshops seek to illuminate the junctures at which scientific communities and their interlocutors in society do, or do not, engage with questions of limits: limits on what knowledge should be pursued, through what means, and how such knowledge should be translated into technological applications; limits on the range of ethical questions that should be asked, the scope of deliberation, and extent of participation within and beyond science; and limits on the forms of reasoning, evidence, and expertise that inform democratic deliberation and decisions on governance. 

How has the need for new limits been understood and approached in emerging research domains where codes of ethical conduct are not yet in place? How are expressions of ambivalence or disagreement about what research should or should not be done accommodated? What institutions, if any, do scientists see as serving their need for guidance or oversight in uncharted territories? What role are universities and professional bodies playing in addressing the demand for limits in a changing landscape? To what extent do institutional design choices and the framing of questions for debate reflect national traditions of expert or democratic deliberation?

Given the complexity of the ethical landscape and the variety of processes at work in setting limits, these workshops are designed to think systematically about how limits to biotechnologies at the frontiers of human life are being defined and to identify salient issues and positions that may be receiving less attention than deserved. This workshop, therefore, seeks to further the Global Observatory’s mission of broadening the present scope of deliberation, centering not just on the limits themselves, but also on the processes that institutionalize them, the voices that contribute to them, the human values that animate them, and the forces that may push back against them. 

Agenda

9:30 AM - 10:30 AM

Southern California Stem Cell Seminar

Jacob Hanna, Weizmann Institute of Science 

Hosted by: Alysson Muotri, UC San Diego

Talk Title: "Ex Utero Embryogenesis: Naive Pluripotent Stem-cells-derived Embryoid Models (SEMs)"

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

Panel 1: Limits of Research

Moderator: J. Benjamin Hurlburt, ASU

Alysson Muotri, UC San Diego

Matthew Porteus, Stanford University

Jacob Hanna, Weizmann Institute of Science

Limits of Research: Exploration of controversial case studies over the limits on research and limitations of scientific deliberation/dissent/ambivalence about such limits. How do the research communities contend with controversial science?

12:30 PM - 1:03 PM

Lunch

Lunch will be provided by Bella Vista Caffe' for those who are registered for the event.

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Panel 2: Cosmopolitan Ethics in Public Deliberation 

Moderator: Krishanu Saha, U. of Wisconsin-Madison

Rosemarie Garland-Thompson, Emory University 

Reuven Brandt, UC San Diego

John Evans, UC San Diego 

Panel Discussion: How do structures and practices of privatization and commercialization affect capacities for deliberating and defining limits? How do questions of purpose, desirability, and public and private interest?

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Panel 3: Limits of Public Governance Keynote: Carrie Wolinetz, NIH 

Moderator: John Evans, UC San Diego

Keynote: Carrie Wolinetz, NIH

Maria Millan, CIRM 

Derek Thompson, "The Atlantic"

Panel Discussion: How do visions and norms of scientific progress inform, encourage or constrain democratic governance of science? How do questions of warrant, purpose, and benefit get asked and answered

Hosted by: The UCSD Stem Cell Program 

Organizer of Stem Cell Ethics 2023: In Search of Limits in the Age of Genome Editing

About the Stem Cell Program 

The UC San Diego Stem Cell Program’s commitment to our scientific community allows for providing laboratories access to our cutting edge technologies with our service cores. Providing video education to our community through the Stem Cell Channel and to the future scientists at UC San Diego and other institutes with CMM 250 graduate studies elective course.