Human Genome Editing: Policy and Politics

press release: For the second lecture in the Middleton Library's ongoing Scholar'd for Life series, R. Alta Charo, Warren P. Knowles Professor of law and bioethics at UW-Madison's Law School, will present a lecture entitled “Human Genome Editing: Policy and Politics”

Registration is appreciate for this event.  Online here or by email at info@midlibrary.org.

Genome editing makes genetic engineering cheaper, easier, and more precise. It can be used to delete, alter or add a genetic trait and is just now entering clinical trials for treatment of a few human diseases. Its powerful potential for preventing and treating disease has, however, also raised questions about its potential uses for enhancing otherwise already healthy human traits, or even more dramatically, making changes in eggs, sperm and embryos that would affect not only our children but our descendants. This talk will briefly describe the technology, its current and near-term uses for human health, and the surrounding policy and politics—much of it connecting to the political debates surrounding abortion, disability rights, and even genetically engineered foods.

R. Alta Charo (B.A. biology, Harvard 1979; J.D. Columbia, 1982) is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. In the past, she also has served on the faculty of the UW Master's in Biotechnology Studies program and the Dept. of Medical History and Bioethics at the School of Medicine & Public Health.

Charo served on President Clinton's National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and as a transition team member and then senior policy analyst at the FDA under the Obama administration, where she was a member of the Health and Human Services review team, focusing her attention particularly on transition issues related to NIH, FDA, bioethics, stem cell policy, and women's reproductive health.

From 2015 - 2017 she was a member of the National Academies' Human Gene Editing Initiative and co-chaired its committee charged with making recommendations on the use of gene-editing for both somatic and germline (heritable) changes in humans.     

Scholar'd for Life is a lecture series presented by the Middleton Public Library in partnership with the UW Madison Speakers Bureau.  Taking the "Wisconsin Idea" as its starting point, this series aims to promote lifelong learning, intellectual curiosity, and engagement between academics and the community as a whole.  More information, including recordings of past lectures, at www.midlibrary.org/sfl.