From the 1950s advent of artificial insemination to the 1970s introduction of prenatal genetic diagnosis to the 1980s innovations with in vitro fertilization to the 1990s development of preimplantation genetic diagnosis to the 21st century developments in heritable embryo editing, the last 75 years have been one Top 40 or box office smash hit after another. From the Ronettes’ “Be My Baby” to the movie “Million Dollar Baby”, this talk will explore the past, present, and future of human reproduction.
Alta Charo (BA biology Harvard ’79; JD law Columbia ’82) is professor emerita of law and bioethics at the University of Wisconsin and now a consultant to companies, government, and NGOs on biotechnology ethics and regulatory policy. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; to the American Association for the Advancement of Science; and to the National Academy of Medicine, where she co-chaired its committees on stem cell research and human genome editing. In government, she served as a legal or policy analyst for the (former) congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the US Agency for International Development, and the FDA. Charo also served as a member of President Clinton’s National Bioethics Advisory Commission and President Obama’s HHS transition team.
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