Dr. Megan Palmer is the William J. Perry
Fellow in International Security at
the Center for International Security and
Cooperation at Stanford, for 2014-2015.
She received her PhD in Biological
Engineering from MIT in 2010.
She is an emerging leader in the cutting
edge field of synthetic biology,
which means biology with practical
consequences,
such as genetic engineering or DNA
sequencing.
This research agenda presents a prospect
of biology being programmed just
like computer program code.
There's a positive side, of course, but
also a dark side.
Viruses, for example, could be programmed.
Dr. Palmer in this lecture points out that
bad things can happen by accident or
by design.
The cost of manipulating biological
systems is getting lower, and
scientists entering the field are becoming
more globalized and more diverse.
She warns us that growing capabilities in
this area may outpace our ability to
respond, and that the risks are varied and
numerous.
We need better detection, better analysis,
and better response assets.
She stresses in particular the need for
norms of responsibility as well as
technical and regulatory capacities.
