The proposed conference, Genetics and Society: Impact of New Technologies on Law, Medicine, and Policy, will bring together more than 800 physicians, lawyers, ethicists, scientists, clergy, students, consumers, and consumer advocates to explore the opportunities and challenges emerging from today's research. Headlines from across the country illustrate the growing public interest in the genetics revolution. Whether the topic is genetically engineered food, mandatory DNA testing, advances in molecular medicine, or genetic privacy, people want to know when and how they will be affected. Yet community leaders such as, physicians, lawyers, legislators, clergy, and teachers, often lack the information required to provide satisfactory answers. The conference, organized by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, in association with the American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics (ASLME) will take place on May 10, 11, and 12, 2000. Confirmed speakers and panelists include: Dr. Harold Varmus, Director of NIH; Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court; Dr. Steven Hyman, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health; Dr. Marcia Angell, Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine; Dr. Eric S. Lander, Director of the Whitehead/MIT Center for Genome Research; and Dr. Arthur L. Caplan, Director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. The Whitehead Institute and ASLME plan to offer the conference for three reasons: (1) the overwhelming response to a previous interdisciplinary symposium on the Human Genome Project (1998), which attracted more than double the number of expected attendees; (2) the rapid changes in technology over the past two years; and (3) the dramatic rise in public interest and concern about a broad range of topics in human genetics and agriculture. Participants will leave the conference with a clear perspective on how current advances in biology will affect their own fields, extensive background materials, continuing education credits (in medicine and law), and new insights into the impact of the genetics revolution on society as a whole. The conference organizers will disseminate the results of the conference through a specially prepared CD-ROM; through a special issue of ASLME's Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics; and through articles submitted to leading medical and scientific journals.
