The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Associate Professor and CISSM Senior Fellow Kathleen Vogel a $400,000 grant to study "The Social and Ethical Implications of Human Germline Genome Editing."
The award, which was made by NSF’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences division and runs for three years, will focus on assessing the ethical issues posed by the development and use of human germline genome editing in China, and its impact on U.S. and global scientific communities. As part of the grant, Vogel and her colleagues will conduct surveys, individual and focus group interviews, and deliberative workshops in Beijing, China, and Washington, DC.
The project will gather important micro- and macro-level data on how local and national contexts (political, economic, social, cultural) shape the ethical conduct of scientists and how such considerations collide, correspond, and evolve with global concerns. As part of the project, Vogel will be collaborating with experts at George Mason University and the University of Kent, United Kingdom.
“This work will provide first hand data on Chinese ethical perspectives on human germline genome editing,” said Vogel. “The projects recommendations will inform U.S. and international policymaking regarding human germline genome editing research and feed into the deliberative efforts of a broad range of scientific and health organizations.”
Vogel previously served as a Rutherford fellow at the Alan Turing Institute in England and a Jefferson Science fellow in the US Department of State. She is the author of Phantom Menace or Looming Danger?: A New Framework for Assessing Bioweapons Threats (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013). She holds a PhD in biological chemistry from Princeton University.
