US and UK policies on Genome Editing/CRISPR-Cas9

Posted on September 29, 2015 | Leave a comment

Here is my take on the US and UK policies on genome editing/CRISPR-Cas9 for the Huffington Post Science blog.

“Riding the wave of the recent Parliamentary approval of human embryonic mitochondrial DNA replacement techniques, the UK now wishes to continued to be portrayed as a pioneer and model for responsible research and innovation for other countries. It is therefore plausible to speculate that a HFEA license will be granted to Niakan’s research group, although probably it will be narrow in scope and in duration. […] I believe that we as bioethicists have a responsibility to try and bring to the surface the underlying forces that that shape the ethical boundaries of a particular debate. Political, social and economic factors shape ethics and policy making, as they shape science and technology in different ways in different countries.”

To read the full article click here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/silvia-camporesi/genome-editing-bioethics-_b_8163840.html?utm_hp_ref=science&ir=Science 

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Today! 1st Cambridge Stem Cell Institute Postdoc Symposium

Posted on July 10, 2015 | Leave a comment

I am excited to be participating today as an invited speaker to the 1st Cambridge Stem Cell Institute Postdoc Symposium, where I will talk about the Gene Editing debate and the role of the bioethicist.

You can access the agenda of the symposium here

Many thanks to Dr Thomas Burgold for inviting me.

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New blog post for Huffington Post: Bioethics as a Profession: Expertise and Accountability for the Gene Editing Debate

Posted on July 9, 2015 | Leave a comment

What follows is an excerpt of an op-ed I have recently published on the Huffington Post Blog with some reflections on the profession of the bioethicist:

“With my students in the MA in Bioethics & Society at King’s College London we spend one lecture at the beginning of the year discussing who and what the bioethicist is.

As I wrote on this blog before, it is, to say the least, a bit disheartening that we seem not to have made any progress in 40 years when it comes to governing science, and that we still refer to Asilomar as the exemplar of best practice for governing science.

Take, for example, the recent news that “US science leaders [are] to tackle the ethics of gene-editing technology.” The National Academy of Science, in what has been explicitly called a “step reminiscent of one in 1975, when NAS convened the Asilomar Conference” is putting together an international summit on gene editing this fall. The intention is – or so it seems – to bring together scientists to set the ethical policies by which scientists work on and with gene editing technologies.

In another example, Francis Collins Director of the NIH has released a statement that NIH will not fund research using gene editing technologies in human embryos. This comes before any engagement with ethics, and as rightly pointed out by Pete Mills of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, it is equivalent to “throwing out the bathwater, baby and all.”

You can read the rest of the blog post here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/silvia-camporesi/bioethics-as-a-profession_b_7595964.html

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