I'm Dr Kathy Liddell. I'm the Director
at the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life
Sciences at the University of Cambridge.
As well as studying how the law can
facilitate new technological advances, we
look at the ways in which law controls
or should control scientific advances.
It's important that where there are
ethical concerns that these are backed
up by legal frameworks that impose the
appropriate standards and also have
systems for enforcement.
Has society got
in place ethically robust processes for
assessing which science technology we
take forward. Do we have rules that
sufficiently protect individuals from
inadvertent mistakes or your potentially
roguish elements in the scientific arena.
When one thinks of the law as being a
controlling device it's important to
recognize it is not trying to hinder
scientists or trying to be some sort of
regulatory red tape but rather it's
trying to ensure that science doesn't
race ahead of public debate.
So these issues can't be left to market
forces and scientific curiosity so at
the Centre for Law, Medicine and Life
Sciences we look at the role of
Law and Government in intervening to
shape the way that these issues are
handled.
