AcumenIST Steffi Friedrichs was one of eight international experts from the fields of biomedicine, law, and ethics at this year’s Marsilius Kolleg (Heidelberg University) Winter School Symposium on “Global Governance of Human Germline Genome Editing”.
The Winter School aimed to investigate the scientific background of human germline editing and how its applications are regulated at the global level. It explored the potential scope of genome editing applications in medicine, the degree of bindingness of any possible international governance, as well as the consideration of different sociocultural insights and their influence on regulations.
In her presentation entitled “The Debate on Human Germline Genome Editing in the Context of Evidence and Opinion”, Steffi Friedrichs provided an overview of the debates that had been conducted on the topic of “human germline genome editing”, and highlighted the opinions aired by the various stakeholder groups (including the research community, various groups of medical practitioners, patient groups, the general public, policy makers, ethicists, and religious organisations). She specifically emphasised the opinions of the communities of the expert researchers and medical practitioners, whose pivotal position in the debate merited a detailed analysis and discussion of arguments.
