The Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Science, Society, and Policy (LCSSP) will be formally launching its newly funded Biopolicy Initiative on October 14, 2025, with an introduction by President Tom Rosenbaum, followed by comments from Mary Maxon, the executive vice president of Carnegie Sciences, on the importance of focusing on policy when engaging in bioscientific research. The keynote address will be delivered by Drew Endy, a Hoover Institution Science Fellow and a key figure in synthetic biology.
Endy, the Martin Family University Faculty Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University, helped to create new undergraduate majors in bioengineering at MIT and Stanford, as well as the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Competition, which brings together teams of high school and college students to share their synthetic biology projects. In fact, a team of local high school students working in the lab of Caltech's Matt Thomson, a professor of computational biology and Heritage Medical Research Institute Investigator, won "best model" in iGEM's 2024 competition for their work on novel enzymes for degrading PFAS, so-called "forever chemicals." Endy will be speaking on "Biology as a Cultural, Political, & Strategic Domain."
Synthetic biology is the effort to create new microbes for myriad applications, including remediating environmental damage, creating medicines, and improving agricultural yields. Engineering microbes by reprogramming their DNA to more efficiently perform specific tasks holds enormous promise but also requires careful attention to appropriate policies and regulations, an area the LCSSP has been working on for some time.
"Biopolicy/bioethics is one of three foundational initiatives at the LCSSP, the others being climate and sustainability, and artificial intelligence," says Frederick Eberhardt, professor of philosophy and co-director of the LCSSP. "This new biopolicy initiative will allow us to create a robust platform to address the societal impact of the rapid evolution in biotechnology and related fields and can serve as a blueprint for our other areas of science-for-policy."
The LCSSP's new Biopolicy Initiative is made possible by the generosity of Ronald and Maxine Linde and Eric and Wendy Schmidt. A five-year plan will sponsor three interlocking programs.
The first of these is a series of science policy workshops bringing together scientists and regulators from academia, industry, government, and funding organizations to discuss critical topics in the interaction of new biological technologies and the regulatory domain in which they do, or should, operate. The inaugural workshop was held at Caltech on October 6–7, 2025: "Biotech Beyond Conventional Containment: A Workshop on Policy & Governance."
The second program in the new Biopolicy Initiative provides seed funding for scientists to perform research in areas directly relevant to questions raised by policy issues. As R. Michael Alvarez, Flintridge Foundation Professor of Political and Computational Social Science and LCSSP co-director, explains, "These projects would aim to provide scientific insights critical for policy decisions, such as understanding risk pathways and environmental impacts, with results presented in reports accessible to regulators." The first round of science-for-policy grants will be announced at the October 14 event.
The third program area provides science policy internships to graduate students and postdocs, enabling them to spend between six and 12 weeks working within government agencies or nongovernmental organizations to observe firsthand how their scientific research relates to regulations and policy.
"Thanks to the generosity of Eric and Wendy Schmidt and the Schmidt Foundation and to the efforts of others, including especially Richard Murray [Thomas E. and Doris Everhart Professor of Control and Dynamical Systems and Bioengineering; BS '85] and Mary Maxon, the Biopolicy Initiative has become a reality," says Ron Linde (MS '62, PhD '64), vice-chair emeritus of the Caltech Board of Trustees. "Under the leadership of Frederick Eberhardt and Mike Alvarez, the LCSSP now is positioned to make a major contribution to a rapidly evolving and absolutely vital field."
The launch event will be held from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Dabney Hall Lounge. All campus members are welcome to attend. For more information, go to the event site at https://lindeinstitute.caltech.edu/events/biopolicy-launch