A public talk by Luis Campos, Baker College Chair for the History of Science, Technology, and Innovation at Rice University

"Debating the ethics of human interference with the mechanics of evolution in a church at the edge of the immense saline test tube where it all started: Rarely does one find one’s metaphors so cheap — or so apt.” So began a remarkable Rolling Stone article summarizing the historic International Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules held in February 1975.

50 years on, the contested meanings of this landmark event are ripe for reconsideration.  In this talk, Campos will explore the resonances and tensions between the famed historical Asilomar, which saw itself as a future-directed event, and contemporary claims for its putative lessons for biotechnology today. As memories, folk histories, and competing analyses intersect with the pressing demands, the “spirit of Asilomar” remains a contested reference point. Campos was the lead organizer of "The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology," a major international summit held at Asilomar this past February (fifty years to the date of the original meeting), where an improbable assembly of participants from around the world and including scientists and engineers, social scientists and humanists, journalists and artists, gathered to discuss five major themes facing biotechnology today: pathogens research and bioweapons; AI and biotechnology; synthetic cells; moving beyond conventional containment; and framings of biotechnology.

19 June, 6pm-7pm, Webb Lecture Theatre, UWA