Upcoming convenings
Global Observatory International Summit
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The Global Observatory will convene an international summit on May 21-23, 2025 at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Please check back soon for more details!
Past convenings
Limits of Genetic Manipulation
Nearly 50 years after the Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA, profound ethical and political questions remain about the governance of genetic engineering and enhancement, as technologies capable of altering the meaning and integrity of human life.
Toward Inclusion: Genome Editing and Social Justice
The Global Observatory hosted a convening to complement the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing. The Summit took place from March 6-8, 2023 at the Francis Crick Institute in London.
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 (the first took place in 2022), explored the narratives of promise, purpose, and perfectibility that animate frontiers developments in biotechnology.
In Search of Limits in the Age of Genome Editing: A 5-Year Retrospective - Statement on He Jiankui Participation
On May 14, 2022 (the second day of our convening In Search of Limits in the Age of Genome Editing: A 5-Year Retrospective), the Global Observatory for Genome Editing conducted a small, closed-door meeting of a select group of invitees to discuss the aftermath of the 2018 experiment
In Search of Limits in the Age of Genome Editing: A 5-Year Retrospective
In the past five years, we have seen the emergence of a global patchwork of laws, policies, recommendations, proposals, conventions, and declarations that define and delimit the field of permissible genome editing research.
A Question of Life
The Global Observatory aims to expand the conversations around concepts and norms concerning human life and dignity. Where human life begins and how lives become worthy of state protection are in flux around the world.
Democratic Imaginations: At the Frontiers of Science and Technology
Democratic Imaginations: At the Frontiers of Science and Technology,” with panelists Andrew Jewett, Marcy Darnovsky, Andrew Feenberg, and Jenny Reardon, and moderators Sheila Jasanoff and J. Benjamin Hurlbut, was held on April 16, 2021.
Can Science Make Sense of Life? Panel Discussion
As part of the series Science, Policy, and the Public at the University of Oregon, Observatory Director Sheila Jasanoff participated in an online discussion of her recent book: Can Science Make Sense of Life?
Genome Editing and Human Dignity: Comparative Perspectives
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This series of meetings launched the work of the Global Observatory for Genome Editing. The purpose: to seek input and advice from an international group of distinguished scholars, scientists, legal experts, policy practitioners, and civil society representatives who will inform the initial agenda…
Editorial Humility
In an event that anticipated the Observatory’s founding, Eric Lander (Broad Institute), Carrie Wolinetz (NIH), and four panelists discussed the opportunities for governance provided by the current effective moratorium on heritable human genome editing.
Editorial Aspirations: Human Integrity at the Frontiers of Biology
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The meeting responded to the the call made at the December 2015 CRISPR summit in Washington, DC for broad public dialogue and an “international forum” on human genome editing.