Engineering Health for the Common Good

A Symposium on Human Genome Editing and the Convergence of Biology and AI

Centering humanity at the frontiers of biotechnology

For nearly three decades, UW–Madison led the effort to articulate public benefits of human embryonic stem cell research and establish the norms that allowed a frontier biotechnology to be supported with public funds.

Human genome editing now presents a similar challenge. CRISPR research is again crossing public-private boundaries, but this time in a new frontier of technological innovation. The Engineering Health for the Common Good symposium takes up the task of articulating a strong case for public benefit, making it the standard by which research must meet as it advances—on the premise that applying emerging biotechnology to biomedicine demands sustained, sometimes uncomfortable exchange among all who stand to inherit its consequences.

This multidisciplinary event brings together scientists, clinicians, engineers, legal scholars, ethicists, disability community representatives, faith communities, and patient organizations to foster dialogue around the opportunities, risks, and societal implications of emerging gene-editing technologies.

Date

Thursday, October 22, 2026
5-7:30PM

Location

Deluca Forum

Discovery Building

University of Wisconsin – Madison

330 N. Orchard St., Madison, WI

This event is open to the public. Please register if you plan to attend.

The Topic

Biotechnology and digital technology are converging in ways that are reshaping what it means to be human. Artificial intelligence, computational biology, and genome editing are becoming a single platform for intervening in human biology at its most basic level. Recent clinical milestones in somatic genome editing, including interventions in utero and in newborns, demonstrate extraordinary therapeutic promise. But these same milestones intensify commercial pressure to push editing capabilities toward the human germline, under optimization paradigms borrowed from the digital sector— where more capability deployed faster is treated as a self-evident good.

With the conviction that the voices most often absent from elite biotechnology convenings—including patients, disability communities, and the broader public—contain answers to essential questions on technological progress, join the University of Wisconsin – Madison in a sustained dialogue to reflect on what this convergence demands of us.

Guiding Questions

How should human wellbeing, flourishing, integrity, and dignity guide decisions as we push the limits of genome editing?
Why do scientists and investors decide how far this goes, and who else should have a say?
Is the human germline a product to be sold, with a code to be debugged?