American Chemical Society AMA: Hi Reddit! My name is Megan J. Palmer, of
the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at
Stanford University. Ask me anything about synthetic biology and the
responsible development of biotechnology!
Abstract
Hi Reddit! I’m Megan J. Palmer, a Senior Research Scholar at the Center
for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford
University. I lead a research program focused on governing risk in
biotechnology and other emerging technologies. Before moving to
Stanford, I served for 5 years as the Deputy Director of the
policy-related research program of the multi-university Synthetic
Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc). I was also previously a
research scientist at the California Center for Quantitative Bioscience
at UC Berkeley, and an affiliate of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs. I
believe that getting diverse communities working in biotechnology more
involved in policy discussions is vital to developing the quickly
advancing field responsibly and building global leadership to prepare
for and respond to inevitable surprise. I founded and serve as Executive
Director of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator
Program (LEAP), which is an international fellowship program in
responsible biotechnology leadership. I also lead programs in safety and
responsible innovation (which we call ‘Human Practices’) for the
international Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition. I
advise various organizations on their approach to biotechnology policy,
including serving on the board of the synthetic biology program of the
U.S. Department of Energy’s Joint Genomics Institute (JGI). Before
moving into policy I trained as a scientist and engineer. My Ph.D. is in
in Biological Engineering from MIT, and I was a postdoctoral scholar in
the Bioengineering Department at Stanford University. I received a
B.Sc.E. in Engineering Chemistry from Queen’s University, in Kingston,
Canada. Ask me anything about synthetic biology and the responsible
development of biotechnology! Hi Reddit! I’ll be online for the next
hour (10-11am PT) to answer your questions! These are great questions -
I’ll stick around until 11:30 PT to answer a few more. I’ll be back
online later this afternoon so feel free to keep asking away!
(~2:30 PT) Thanks Reddit for all our your great
questions. I wish I had been able to get to them all! I hope some of the
information and resources I’ve linked to will keep you engaged in this
exciting area of work. Until next time! Cheers - Megan