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Join us for this in-person and live-streamed SSN Healthy Futures Seminar with Professor Luis Campos of Rice University

The Spirit of Asilomar

Join us for this in-person and live streamed SSN Healthy Futures Seminar with Professor Luis Campos of Rice University, in conversation with Professor Alice Pébay and Dr Evie Kendal.

Join in the conversation on Twitter with #SSNseminar #healthyfutures or on the Youtube livestream chat. Please select tickets for online or in-person accordingly.

Abstract

From the dawn of genetic engineering and the emergence of synthetic biology to the prospects for germline genome engineering today, biologists and their interlocutors have frequently referred to the 1975 meeting at Asilomar (on the potential biohazards of new recombinant DNA techniques) as a touchstone for contemporary issues. They debate whether “Asilomar” was a paradigmatic or exemplary event; recount how it unfolded and what it all meant for laboratory protocols, research agendas, scientific governance, and for society at large; and question whether “another Asilomar” meeting is necessary today to deal with the emergence of newer techniques in biotechnology. But with so many contested meanings does it make sense to speak of a unitary ‘spirit of Asilomar’? In this talk, I will explore the resonances and tensions between the famed historical Asilomar (which saw itself as a future-directed event), and contemporary claims for its putative lessons. As memories, folk histories, and competing analyses intersect with the pressing demands of cutting-edge science, ‘the spirit of Asilomar’ remains a contested reference point, haunting science-and-society relations and the emergence of new prospects in biology today.

Speaker bio

Luis Campos is the Baker College Chair for the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation at Rice University. Trained in both biology and in the history of science, Campos has written widely on the history of genetics and biological engineering. He is the author of Radium and the Secret of Life (University of Chicago Press, 2015) and co-editor of Making Mutations: Objects, Practices, Contexts (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2009), and Nature Remade: Engineering Life, Envisioning Worlds (University of Chicago Press, 2021). He has held the Baruch S. Blumberg/NASA Chair of Astrobiology at the Library of Congress (2016-2017), and has been in residence at the Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), Columbia University (New York), Fondation Brocher (Geneva), Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart), and the biotech company Ginkgo Bioworks (Boston). Campos is an associate editor of the Journal of the History of Biology, and recently completed six years serving as Secretary of the History of Science Society, “the world’s largest society dedicated to understanding science, technology, and medicine, and their interactions with society in their historical context.”

Discussant bios

Professor Alice Pébay

Professor Alice Pébay AM is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and a Principal Research Fellow at The University of Melbourne and Royal Melbourne Hospital. She is also a Member of the ARC College of Experts, a Director of Genetic Cures Australia, Adjunct Associate Professor of the University of Western Australia’s Centre for Ophthalmology and Visual Science, a Member of the Australasian Friedreich Ataxia Gene Therapy Clinical Trials Committee, an Affiliate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors, and a Scientific Advisory Board Member of the ASX listed company PYC Therapeutics. She has also worked as the Head of the Neuroregeneration Research Unit at the Centre for Eye Research Australia. Alice’s research aims to use patient specific pluripotent stem cells to model neurodegenerative diseases of the eye and brain. She is the primary inventor of three granted international patents related to stem cell technology.

Dr Evie Kendal

Dr Evie Kendal is a bioethicist and public health researcher at the Department of Health Sciences and Biostatistics, Swinburne University of Technology. Evie completed her Bachelor of Biomedical Science in 2008, specialising in human pathology and behavioural neuroscience, before completing a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies, Classical Studies (Latin) and Philosophy, with First Class Honours in English Literature. She completed her Master of Bioethics in 2012 and her PhD in Bioethics from Monash University in 2018. Evie also completed a Master of Public Health and Tropical Medicine at James Cook University in 2017, specialising in reproductive and environmental health. Evie’s research interests include ethical dilemmas in emerging biotechnologies, space ethics, and public health ethics.