Recent advances in genomic and reproductive technologies raise difficult and profound issues as to the permitted sphere of activity in both clinical practice and biomedical research.  From the perspective of the law, ethics and society at large, what limits should be placed on the use (and perhaps even the exploration of these technologies through biomedical research), and on what basis?  The advent of technologies such as genetic screening, whole-genome sequencing and most recently, the possibility of gene editing of the human genome are examples of such technologies such as CRISPR present potential situations whose implications run far ahead of the current state of the law.  In many jurisdictions, current legislative and legal assumptions are premised on historical responses to social concerns such as the threat of eugenics and human cloning.

Are such blunt legislative responses obsolete in the sense that they fail to sufficiently capture the nuances of current and future technologies, and fail to permit the fair assessment of each of these kinds of technologies in their own right?  In the same way, these new technologies also raise challenges to established assumptions about the privacy of the individual, and about data protection.  This workshop seeks to explore the likely shape of public policy and regulatory responses to the challenges posed by new genomic and reproductive technologies in both the fields of clinical practice as well as biomedical research – who should shape the debate, and what should be the role of the law?

Programme:
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