LCSSP Workshop | Biotech Beyond Conventional Containment: A Workshop on Policy & Governance
- Internal Event
The regulation of biotechnology in the United States has long been characterized by ambiguities, uncertainties, inefficiencies, and gaps (U.S. OSTP). In recent years, the scientific community has increasingly reflected on its role in producing this suboptimal system. One reason for the status quo: for decades, ideas about governance have been geared toward maintaining separation between genetically engineered organisms and the "natural" world.
For better or worse, when the fledgling biotech industry convened at the 1975 Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, the scientific community rallied around physical containment as a solution to the potential risks of genetic engineering. The goal, as one scholar puts it, was to "offset any uncertainty about the hazards of rDNA constructs with the certainty that they would not escape the lab" (Hurlbut 2015).
Today, contemporary frameworks for biosafety still tend to rely heavily on concepts of physical separation and technological containment. While some biotech applications are still created for use in confined settings, many of the field's most promising innovations are not. In a world where biotech applications are increasingly developed for deliberate dissemination into the environment, the parameters for responsible innovation must be revisited.
Workshop Organizing Committee: Richard Murray (Caltech), Sara Kassir (Caltech), Tom Adamo Schmidt (Caltech), Zack Abbott (ZBiotics), Emma Frow (Arizona State University), Andrea Hodgson (Schmidt Sciences), Cholpisit (Ice) Kiattisewee (MIT), and Yonatan Chemla (MIT)
The public talks will take place on October 6th from 8:00am-12:00pm in Room 100 of the Chen Institute for Neuroscience, with lunch in Dabney Gardens to follow.
Please note that the morning session and lunch are open to the broader Caltech community. We kindly ask that you please fill out the Public Registration Form if you plan on attending.
The afternoon of October 6th and the entire day of October 7th are closed sessions by invitation only.