(Please note this timing is different from other Work in Progress seminars in TT25)
A hybrid event for Uehiro Oxford Institute Members and Associates (booking not required).
Abstract
The advent of heritable polygenic editing (HPE) represents a transformative frontier in genomic medicine, with the potential to significantly reduce the prevalence of complex diseases and enhance human healthspan – but how feasible is it and what are the ethical and societal considerations? From recent advancements in gene editing technologies, such as CRISPR-Cas9, and their potential to target multiple genomic variants associated with diseases like Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, type 2 diabetes, coronary artery disease, and major depressive disorder, we look at how a small number of variants could lead to substantial reductions in disease risk, far surpassing current capabilities of embryo selection using polygenic scores. We also spotlight the ethical questions of gene editing.
Speaker
Professor Julian Savulescu, Professor in Medical Ethics and Director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore.
Venue
Uehiro Oxford Institute, Suite 1 Seminar Area, Littlegate House, 16-17 St Ebbe’s Street, Oxford OX1 1PT (buzzer 1)
Zoom
Please attend in-person if you can. If you need to join online, the Zoom link is available from the Institute's Internal Google Calendar, or on request from vara.raturi@tss.ox.ac.uk
