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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Somatic Cell Gene Therapy, Germline Gene Therapy and Gene Drives
Efficient gene sequencing, enhanced analytic methods to identify targets, and accurate fast gene editing tools to make changes have contributed to a revolution in applied genomics. In the past year:
While all of these applications are enabled by CRISPR Cas9, the ethical, legal and economic challenges posed vary widely, with serious economic challenges for somatic gene therapy, with thorny ethical issues for developers and consumers of human germline modification, and with fundamental problems defining the appropriate scope and extent of consultation for first generation gene drives.
Keynote Speaker
Kenneth Oye is the Director of the MIT Program on Emerging Technologies, with a joint appointment in Political Science and Engineering Systems. Professor Oye serves as Director of Policy and Practices in NSF SynBERC, a faculty research lead at the MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation, a faculty affiliate of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a member of the Advisory Board of the International Risk Governance Council. His recent articles include pieces on gene drives in Science, on yeast based opiate production in Nature, on drug licensing in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and on the environmental effects of synthetic biology in the Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences.
