Session 28: What Genomics Dreams May Come
Moderators: Dr. Barry Behr & Dr. Helen O’Neill
Beyond Hacking Darwin
Dr. Jamie Metzl, USA
Practical Application of Polygenic Risk Scoring in the Human Embryo
Dr. Nathan Treff, USA
Precision Medicine in Reproduction: Time for Prediction and Prevention
Dr. Helen O’Neill, UK
Jamie Metzl
Jamie Metzl is a technology and healthcare futurist, geopolitical expert, novelist, entrepreneur, media commentator, Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, Singularity University faculty member, and the Founder and Chair of OneShared.World. In 2019, he was appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing. Jamie previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations in Cambodia. He serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab and has been an election monitor in Afghanistan and the Philippines and advised the government of North Korea on the establishment of Special Economic Zones.
Jamie appears regularly on national and international media his syndicated columns and other writing on science, technology, health, politics, and international affairs are featured regularly in publications around the world. He is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide, the historical novel The Depths of the Sea, and the genetics thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata. The highly revised paperback edition of his bestselling non-fiction book Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity was released in April 2020.
A founder and Co-Chair of the national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, Jamie is a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice, the American University in Mongolia, and Parsons Dance, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Brandeis International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow. Jamie holds a Ph.D. from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University.
Jamie speaks frequently to corporate, nonprofit, and academic audiences around the world.
Dr. Nathan Treff
Nathan Treff received his PhD in Biochemistry in 2003 and performed postdoctoral fellowships in embryonic stem cell biology and reproductive genetics at the University of Wisconsin and EMD Serono. He is currently the CSO of Genomic Prediction and Reprocare Genetics Scandinavia, Board Certified in Molecular Diagnostics as a High Complexity Laboratory Director, an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, and a Senior Editor of Fertility and Sterility Science and JARG. Dr. Treff has published over 100 peer reviewed papers in reproductive genetics and has served as a member of the ASRM Research Committee for 5 years. His work has focused on development and validation of comprehensive genomic analyses in the preimplantation embryo. For his research, he received 6 prize paper awards from the ASRM, the 2013 Ira and Ester Rosenwaks Young Investigator Award, the 2013 Bonei Olam Scientific Achievement Award, a 2014 EMD Serono Grant for Fertility Innovation, and an NIH RO1 co-investigator grant. As a cofounder of Genomic Prediction, his recent published work on PGT for polygenic disease risk has been reported on by the Wall Street Journal, Netfilx, Forbes, the Economist, Nature News, MIT Technology Review, and the European Commission. Genomic Prediction recently received the New Jersey Tech Council’s Emerging Company of the Year award in 2019.
Dr. Helen O’Neill
Dr Helen O’Neill is a lecturer in Reproductive and Molecular Genetics and Director for the MSc in Reproductive Science and Women’s Health at the Institute for Women’s Health, University College London (UCL). Her research focusses on preimplantation embryo development and the use of genome editing to assess understanding and treatment of disorders of infertility. Dr O’Neill has an honours degree in Genetics, an MSc in Prenatal Genetics and Fetal Medicine from UCL and did her PhD and postdoctoral research on the genetics of ovarian development in the Department of Stem cell biology and developmental genetics at the National Institute for Medical Research. She lectures both masters and medical students and is active in public engagement involving genome editing. Dr O’Neill is CEO and Founder of Hertility Health, a precision medicine based approach to reproductive health.