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
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?
2025 Speakers
-
George Daley
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Caroline Shields Walker Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
-
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
-
Kevin Esvelt
Associate Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, MIT Media Lab
-
Shai Lavi
Director of Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, Professor of Law, Tel-Aviv University
-
Daniel Wikler
Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Ethics and Population Health, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Emeritus
-
Roli Mathur
Head, Indian Council of Medical Research Bioethics Unit
-
Tay Salimullah
Partner, 4BIO Capital Managing; General Partner, Renovamen Advisory LLC
-
Philip Campbell
Former Editor-in-Chief, Nature
-
Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
Professor of English and Bioethics, Emory University
-
Kiran Musunuru
Professor of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
-
Erik Sontheimer
Pillar Chair in Biomedical Research and Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School
-
Katie Hasson
Associate Director at Center for Genetics and Society
-
Fyodor Urnov
Professor of Molecular Therapeutics, Scientific Director of Innovative Genomics Institute, UC Berkeley
-
Glenn Cohen
Faculty Director, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School
-
Durhane Wong-Rieger
President and CEO, Canadian Organization for Rare Disorders
-
Jane Qiu
Award-winning independent science journalist
-
Patricia Williams
University Distinguished Professor of Law and Humanities, Northeastern Law School
-
Siobhán O’Sullivan
Executive Director, Royal Irish Academy; Chair, Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health, Council of Europe
-
Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz
Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology
-
Victor Dzau
President, National Academy of Medicine
-
James Keenan
Director of The Jesuit Institute, Boston College
-
Christiane Woopen
Hertz Professor for Life Ethics and Director of the Center for Life Ethics, Bonn University
-
Sarojini Nadimpally
Co-Founder, SAMA - Resource Group for Women and Health, India
-
John McQuillan
Triumvirate Environmental Inc.
-
George Church
Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science
-
Arnold Eisen
Chancellor Emeritus, Jewish Theological Seminary
-
Vardit Ravitsky
President and CEO, The Hastings Center for Bioethics
-
Jennifer Herdt
Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics, Yale University’s Divinity School
-
Jonathan D. Kahn
Professor of Law and Biology, Northeastern University
-
Vijay Chandru
National Centre for Biological Sciences, Centre for Brain Research, Bangalore, India
-
Judy Norsigian
Co-founder, Leadership Council, Executive Advisory Board, Global Projects Committee
-
Christian O'Reilly
Playwright and Screenwriter
-
Jacob Hanna
Senior Scientist and Professor in Molecular Genetics, Weizmann Institute of Science
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
2025 Organizers
-
Katherine Littler
Co-Lead, Global Health Ethics and Governance Unit, World Health Organization
-
Kaushik Sunder Rajan
Faculty Director of the Pozen Family Center for Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology, University of Chicago
-
Douglas Kysar
Joseph M. Field Professor of Law, Yale Law School
-
Orlando (Carter) Snead
Charles E. Rice Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame Law School
-
Françoise Baylis
University Research Professor, Dalhousie University; incoming President-Elect of the Royal Society of Canada
-
John Evans
Associate Dean of Social Sciences, UC San Diego
-
Jahnavi Phalkey
Founding Director, Science Gallery Bengaluru
-
Matthew Porteus
Sutardja Chuk Professor of Definitive and Curative Medicine, Stanford University
-
Carrie Wolinetz
Senior Principal, Lewis-Burke Associates; Former Senior Advisor at NIH
-
Peter Mills
Director, PHG Foundation
-
David Winickoff
Senior Policy Analyst, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
-
Timothy Hunt
Alliance for Regenerative Medicine
-
Laurence Lwoff
Head of Human Rights and Biomedicine Division, Council of Europe