[SydPhil] Sydney Health Ethics Conversation - Julian Savulescu, 27 February

[Kathryn MacKay]

Julian Savulescu & Jackie Leach Scully | February 27th 
Sydney Health Ethics Conversation Series  
Polygenic Selection and Editing: A Welfarist Approach 

Hi everyone, 
Join us for next week's SHE conversation series with a provocative new paper by Professor Julian Savulescu & a response from Professor Jackie Leach Scully 
Speaker

Professor Julian Savulescu is the Chen Su Lan Centennial Professor of Medical Ethics and Director of the Centre for Biomedical Ethics at the National University of Singapore Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is an award-winning bioethicist and moral philosopher trained in neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy who has held the Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford since 2002.

Discussant

Jackie Leach Scully is an internationally recognised bioethicist specialising in disability and feminist bioethics. With a background in molecular biology and further training in neurobiology, she held research fellowships at the Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne and the University of Basel, Switzerland, before helping to establish the first interdisciplinary unit for bioethics at Basel. In August 2019 she moved to UNSW as Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Disability Innovation Institute, based in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. 
Polygenic Selection and Editing: A Welfarist Approach 

Most diseases, psychological dispositions, talents and limitations have some genetic contribution usually by the contribution of many genes (polygenic). Polygenic scores or polygenic risk scores provide probabilistic information about the development of polygenic conditions such as diabetes or schizophrenia, or traits such as intelligence or same sex behaviour. Polygenic scores promise to revolutionise medicine and reproduction. 

I will argue we have a moral obligation to use polygenic scores in reproduction to select the best child (procreative beneficence) and if causal variants are identified to gene edit multiple genes not only to promote health, but to promote well-being and autonomy. I address the problem of pleiotropy, where a polygenic disposition leads to multiple effects, such as a disposition to same sex behaviour and openness to experience. I will provide a novel welfarist framework to regulation of both genetic selection and gene editing of polygenic traits. 
When
27th February 2025 
12:00–1:20 PM
Where
Michael Spencer Building F23.01.104
Joining online? Register here: Zoom registration link  <https://url.au.m.mimecastprotect.com/s/NBipCr81nytDEQ2G3uRfyT4gV3n?domain=t.e2ma.net>
If you have any questions or need further information, please don’t hesitate to reach out to Supriya Subramani (supriya.subramani at sydney.edu.au <mailto:supriya.subramani at sydney.edu.au>) 


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