Events - Event View

The March 20th webinar has been recorded. Members of Société can view the webinar here  

2023 marked the 50th anniversary of a scientific milestone—the initial generation of recombinant DNA (rDNA) by scientists at Stanford University and the University of California, San Francisco. Recombinant DNA and gene cloning technologies went on to foster important innovations in agriculture and drug development and catalyzed the emergence and growth of the biotechnology industry. But these revolutionary scientific developments also generated unprecedented levels of interest and scrutiny from journalists, policy makers, and members of the public who were fascinated—and occasionally disturbed!—by the potential of these groundbreaking technologies.

In this lecture, David Cole shares highlights from the history of rDNA, exploring its “origin story” and its emergence as a scientific, medical, industrial, and public phenomenon over the past fifty years. Informed by this history, he will also examine parallels between past debates around rDNA and gene cloning and currently developing discourses about the promise and ethics of CRISPR gene editing and AI-driven biomedicine

There is no question that recombinant DNA will continue to drive innovations for many  years to come in both drug delivery, but also many other aspects of science and our lives.

Following the presentation, attendees will have the opportunity to participate in a 30 minute networking session.
 
Speaker:

David Allen Cole President & CEO Science History Institute

About our Speaker:

David Allen Cole is the president and CEO of the Science History Institute in Philadelphia.  Prior to arriving at the Institute in 2020, he had served as the Executive Director of the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, Delaware since 2013.  He is interested in innovation history and theory and is the author of The Power of Innovation, an exhibition and catalogue on the history of American invention and the U.S. patent system in the nineteenth century, presented at the National Museum of China (2018).  A graduate of Vanderbilt University, he received a master’s degree from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in the History of Art and American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.  Dr. Cole has been a Henry Luce Foundation Fellow, a Research Fellow of the Learning Innovations Laboratory (LILA) of Harvard University, and has taught at Harvard University, Rice University, and the University of Texas at Austin.