May 21-23, 2025

International Summit Global Observatory for Genome Editing

In-Person and Virtual Attendance

May 21-23, 2025

International Summit Global Observatory for Genome Editing

American Academy of Arts & Sciences Norton's Woods Conference Center
136 Irving St, Cambridge, MA 02138

Disruptive Promises, Democratic Futures.

The Global Observatory’s 2025 Summit foregrounds questions about biotechnologies that may alter the meaning of being human. Genome editing, especially of the human germline, raises fundamental questions of the dignity and integrity of human life. Governance concerns once focused on the escape of potentially risky lab-created organisms. Today the more urgent concerns relate to transgressing moral boundaries and violating human integrity. How should we respond?

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2025 Speakers

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Patricia Williams

University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities, Northeastern Law School
James Keenan

Director of The Jesuit Institute, Boston College
Judy Norsigian

Co-founder, Leadership Council, Executive Advisory Board, Global Projects Committee
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson

Professor of English and Bioethics, Emory University
Roli Mathur

Head, Indian Council of Medical Research Bioethics Unit
Jane Qiu

Award-winning independent science journalist
Kiran Musunuru

Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
Philip Campbell

Former Editor-in-Chief, Nature
Sarojini Nadimpally

Co-Founder, SAMA - Resource Group for Women and Health, India
Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology
Siobhán O’Sullivan

Executive Director, Royal Irish Academy; Chair, Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health, Council of Europe
Jennifer Herdt

Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University’s Divinity School
Arnold Eisen

Chancellor Emeritus, Jewish Theological Seminary
Jonathan D. Kahn

Professor of Law and Biology, Northeastern University
Kevin Esvelt

Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
Erik Sontheimer

Pillar Chair in Biomedical Research and Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Jacob Hanna

Senior Scientist and Professor in Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science
Alondra Nelson

Harold F. Linder Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study; former Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
Glenn Cohen

Faculty Director, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School
Vardit Ravitsky

President and CEO, The Hastings Center for Bioethics
Tay Salimullah

Partner, 4BIO Capital Managing; General Partner, Renovamen Advisory LLC
George Church

Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science
Shai Lavi

Director of Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Professor of Law, Tel-Aviv University
Victor Dzau

President, National Academy of Medicine
Daniel Wikler

Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Ethics and Population Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Emeritus
Vijay Chandru

National Centre for Biological Sciences, Centre for Brain Research, Bangalore, India
George Daley

Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Fyodor Urnov

Professor of Molecular Therapeutics, Scientific Director of Innovative Genomics Institute, UC Berkeley
John McQuillan

Triumvirate Environmental Inc.
Christian O'Reilly

Playwright and Screenwriter
Christiane Woopen

Hertz Professor for Life Ethics and Director of the Center for Life Ethics, Bonn University
Katie Hasson

Associate Director at Center for Genetics and Society
Durhane Wong-Rieger

President and CEO, Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders

Our Sponsors

This Summit is made possible through the financial support of

Summit Program Overview

Day 1 | Wed, May 21 4:00PM - 9:30PM

Day 2 | Thurs, May 22 9:00AM - 6:30PM

Day 3 | Fri, May 23 9:00AM - 8:00PM

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2025 Organizers

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Jahnavi Phalkey

Founding Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru
Laurence Lwoff

Head of Human Rights and Biomedicine Division, Council of Europe
John Evans

Associate Dean of Social Sciences, UC San Diego
Kaushik Sunder Rajan

Faculty Director of the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago
Timothy Hunt

Alliance for Regenerative Medicine
Orlando (Carter) Snead

Charles E. Rice Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
Katherine Littler

Co-Lead, Global Health Ethics and Governance Unit, World Health Organization
David Winickoff

Senior Policy Analyst, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Douglas Kysar

Joseph M. Field Professor of Law, Yale Law School
Carrie Wolinetz

Senior Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates; Former Senior Advisor at NIH
Matthew Porteus

Sutardja Chuk Professor of Definitive and Curative Medicine, Stanford University
Peter Mills

Director, PHG Foundation
Françoise Baylis

University Research Professor, Dalhousie University; incoming President-Elect of the Royal Society of Canada