Baldaci talks about his books on in depth. Watch this memorial day weekend on cspan2. It is my pleasure to invite you to this special event with an allstar cast of meetings and amazing brainpower. One of my favorite authors in the world, jamie metzl. On behalf of the university and our host at think spot, it is my honor and privilege to welcome you to this global event celebrating the release of the highly revised which means if you have gotten the hardback, by this one too because there are some changes. A highly acclaimed and bestselling book, hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity. Until recently a successful book launch involved 100 people, maybe a few more, some hors doeuvres, a little bit of bad wine but now you can your favorite food from your refrigerator, your beverage of choice and this is a lot better and this is also being carried by cspan, so welcome everybody from cspan as well. These are unprecedented times. There is also promise in these times. This is a time you can move things, a moment when things can be shaped for ill or for good. We are focused on the book. We found in four weeks of telework that it stopped being a social distance. We galvanize the Global Community and created more social interaction and closeness even at this geographic distance and we are galvanize to our times, a community of big thinkers and one of the biggest thinkers of the mall is the person we have come to celebrate tonight to join in the global conversation. We are concerned with covid19 but we are looking at it through the prism of our mission which is working with friends and allies to shape the future. Looking at the contest between democracy and hypocrisy, looking at the us role in the world, looking at the future of the global system, looking importantly at climate change, migration, resilience factors and how do we Harness Technology for good . That is important with our newly launched geotech center. In addition to being an Atlantic Council senior fellow and jamie metzl has a lot of titles but this is the most important. Atlantic Council Senior column has done a few other things as well. He is a leading technology and healthcare futurists, geopolitical expert, Science Fiction novelist, Founding Member of exponential medicine and a member of the human genome project. Last year he was appointed to the World Health OrganizationAdvisory Committee on human genome that it. Jamie metzl served with the National Security council, state department and Senate ForeignRelations Committee and the United Nations in cambodia. Sometimes i think he has done so many things there must be 3 or 4. I tried to keep up with bicycle riding and some other things and it hasnt worked. He is also a regular commentator on cnn and other major media. Hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity is jamies fifth book and since it came back in hardback last year the reviews of been stellar. In pr says, quote, jamie metzl writes with great clarity and sense of urgency that we should all take to heart. Nature says jamie metzl has a knack for clarifying scientific and moral complexities, and seeing the big picture. Cnns send a group to send, quote, if you can only read one book on the future of our species, if you read five books read all of them. If you havent already read hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity, you should. If you dont want to read it at least buy it. This is my tip for you. You have a deal right now that you are not going to get another time. Here you go. I dont get a cut of this. Sourcebooks is making jamie metzl ebook available today, only for 4. 95, a third of the regular price, 4. 95. Before asking jamie metzl to speak i want to tell you about this and introduce the other special guests. After jamie metzl speaks for 10 minutes he will invite George Church to do the same. George is one of the worlds greatest scientists. His backdrop is not live. It is a safe backdrop. George is professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and professor of Health Science and technology at harvard and Massachusetts Institute of technology, director of the department of Energy Technology center and director of the National Institutes of health center, leads the Synthetic Biology license where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers and whole genomes to create new tools with applications and Regenerative Medicine and bio production chemicals. In 1984 he developed the first direct genome sequencing method which resulted in the first genome sequence which he helped initiate the human genome project in 1984 and the personal genome project in 2005. It is a delight to have you with us. After george speaks, debora spar will talk about what she has heard and ask the first question for jamie metzl and george to answer. Deborah is another superstar, the former president of barnyard university, shes now professor at Harvard Business school and senior associate dean of Harvard Business school online. Her new book, work made mary love, how change shapes our human destiny, will be released in august. After that, daniel kraft will moderate questions and answers based on questions raised by you. Anyone can pose a question and the ones that are uploaded the most will rise to the top. We encourage you to post questions throughout the session. The stanford and harvard physician scientist, inventor, entrepreneur and innovator, chair of medicine for Singularity University and the founder and chair of exponential medicine, a program that explores rapidly developing technology and the potential for biomedicine and healthcare. With that, what an incredible lineup. Start thinking about your questions. Passing to jamie metzl to kick this off. Thank you so much. It is an incredible honor for you to be here. This is my dream team. I dont know whether it is lebron or whoever but if you imagine a team from everyone on earth i would like to have joining me in any event like this. Thank you, thank you also to a great cohost, at Singularity University, and i happen to be one. And a crazy moment and we are all dealing with this sense of sadness and morning, because there are very real and meaningful people and things being lost. Im in new york city at the center of it but theres a lot of pain but we are also feeling there is a new world on so many levels being created. Trends that were already happening are accelerating in profound and incredible ways and new communities are forming and these days for everybody it is hard differentiate days because so many things are happening, new types of collaborations are happening. This is an like a snow day or big storm where we just wait it out in the snow gets plowed in the sun comes out and we go back, this is really a fundamental change in my view in how we live and in our history and the history of everything, not just our science but our community and societies and worlds. I have one leg in the world of National Security and geopolitics and a lot of people reference 2001, the year of the 9 11 attacks but to me it feels more like a 1941 the year where there was a huge battle ahead and it wasnt clear whether the battle is going to be won but even in those early dark days of the war there were people, leaders like fdr and churchill who came together and said we need to know what we are fighting for and then we can organize around building that world. We may not have an fdr or churchill right now in our political world. Something really exciting about this moment is it feels like we are dividing up the task, we are all coming together and everybody has a little piece of fdr and we are doing things our governments in other times might have done like provide support, provide hope, provide encouragement, that is really incredible because yes, we have a virus that is supercharged, so many humans and we are so mobile but the networks we are using to address this crisis, the speed of globalization, and many others, daniel has a hub for the whole medical community. Everyone is forming and reforming communities looking at new ways to solve these problems in the Scientific Community george is a central hub so the genome assistant others who are coming together and say how do we Work Together to solve this problem . We are seeing an intersection, the genetics revolution among the billions of species that live and have ever lived are one species has this ability to read, write and hack code of life. Than one species, almost a godlike power, imagine our gods having, we are starting to have those powers but to quote spiderman, with that power comes great responsibility, to make sure that our most cherished ethics guiding application of our most powerful technologies. The genetics raising forward on 3 primary areas, predictive healthcare, humans where a massive mega data set. It came a time the sophistication of tools, and developing incredible technologies, not treated individually but their own biology and after birth, or even before birth, thats going to change the way we think about healthcare but not just healthcare. We think about genetics, we think about in the context, that is our primary interaction. We dont have a disease genome, we have human genomes, the potential to be the range of possibilities so we are figuring genetics, with consumer genetics, it gets much bigger and is going to touch tougher, more challenging issues like identity, like parenting and the most profound application will be how these technologies change not just the way we do this and shift toward embryo screening, another book coming out in august but also it will change and over time the nature of what we make. A very profound conversation and feel like a conversation about science and we dont need to be having the conversation but ultimately the conversation about ethics because all technology, it has a built in value system. Its up to us to infuse our values, the most significant application of those technologies. Since the newest version of hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity came out last april, i had limited experience with crisper babies who were born but we know there are three of these genome edited babies, there might be more, we dont know. After that experience the World Health Organization created an International Advisory community on human genome editing. I was honored to be chosen as one of the 18 members of that commission. We are working extremely hard on what might be framework or how to think about how we can apply these technologies in ways that maximize benefit and minimize harm. Other members of the commission are here in this meeting. I was honored to speak at the vatican about these issues and people from the vatican are participating. My view is this is about the future of our species and we need a table that is big enough for everybody from religious conservatives in various backgrounds, trans humanists, we are all human and all in this together. This trend of the genetics revolution is intersecting with the coronavirus crisis. We have these pandemics in the past, we were never able to sequence viral genomes within two weeks, we have never been able to have a digital readout of the code and understand the virus we were facing, we never had computer models that allow us to test the response. Weve never been able to develop testing despite the monumental screwup in this country, weve never been able to develop a diagnostic test this quickly. And viral genome intake as it spreads around the world critically important. And at Harvard Business school,. And to carry out the genetic patterns, and increased resistance. A smart decision, developing vaccines, maybe we can do it in a year, i was talking to very senior, smart scientists in los angeles, he didnt know if we could ever achieve george is on this call, george the scientist, developing Surveillance Systems in them last passage. The incredible science that we have the science comes with very significant ethical challenge, every technology could be abused. The onus is on us to figure out how to optimize the benefit before the harm. That will be hard enough. We live in an abstract world where we could make the smartest decisions possible. We live in a world, i write about this in the book, defined by the political context in which we live. We see that in the political failures, the first 3 weeks of this outbreak to get on top of this crisis, the failure in the United States, tests to have adequate information that could be provided to the american people. There is a failure over decades to build a World Health Organization that would resource and empower the mandate to do the job every human on earth would want to do. And then the science exists in the context of global power structure, and everybody, everybody around the world, the way we havent done since but. Enters understanding science is not just something for professors. Everybody needs to understand the science, not just so we can understand the world around us, but so that we can make smart decisions to protect the people who we love. That is the origin of hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity. 23 years ago i was working on the National Security council, my than by the now good friend on the call, richard clark, he was telling everyone who would listen, fighting all kinds of internal bias saying we have to focus on terrorism. That is one little thing. The memo was on george w. Bush always used to say to be effective you have to look around the corner. You have to see what is coming and that means this conversation. It is not just this virus, not just coronavirus, not just deadly pathogens. It is a whole suite of things and we arent organized to address them around states and the International Organizations that are controlled, the power to do what needs to be done. What the book is trying to do is put all those pieces together in a package for everybody. I am a Science Fiction writer. This is the greatest story of all time. It is the story of the past, present and future of our species. In this revised paperback, the full story of how john kwai, more and deadly pathogens, before the coronavirus happened but to understand there is a package of things people need to understand, we have a lot of good books in each of these categories. I hope they read the book and talk about it over dinner. I spoke about it with senior scientists at the national lab and seventh and eighth greeters, everybody gets that these issues are human issues. There is a political guide. And government officials whether they do it. Has an author we write a book once you deliver it, everybody else, whatever the digital equipment is, ripping out pages, whatever it is, as fred said, practically giving it away, the official price is 4. 75, the amazon price until midnight today is Something Like 3. 57. As daniel will now, nobody in history other than john grisham and three other people, to share ideas. And to hunker down in moments like this and focus on things that are right in front of us but the world is changing in a fundamental way, and take a step back and see what is going to allow us to develop together our northstar, where we are heading and evaluate the little decisions we make along the way based on the goal of what we are hoping to do. If there is anybody who sees the big picture of science and what science has the potential to be and implications of that, such an honor for me to have all the people who are speakers but george is special lands most people believe he is among the greatest living scientists, he certainly is among the most creative and forward thinking scientist, not everybodys trying to resuscitate the woolly mammoth and people have said he is todays Charles Darwin and in case you had any doubts he grew a beard to look like it. It could be coincidence but you judge for yourself. So george, as we discussed, we would love you to share your thoughts on how these incredible tools of the genetics information in your view best be used to address the Current Crisis or beyond, over to you. Thanks. It is truly an amazing time. We need to embrace the threat and we have to think about the Silver Lining, remarkable things that are going out, we are seeing lower impact of any of to and all the things in addition to this horrifying one. The commitment to have preventive medicine, we are seeing more from sars and ebola but finally got it right and finally, elaborating. So we see that from being under fire and diagnostics of those diagnostics could have saved us 2 trillion, spending on the order of tens of millions of dollars per year, the boost we could get going forward. We do that proactively. On the topic of hacking darwin genetic engineering and the future of humanity and Synthetic Biology, we need to think of biology as a broad term, we are engineering life it is far from our ancestors. We are part of nature but innocent clues like insulin and vaccines, therapy and diagnosed 6 the we are on right now, in therapy. It doesnt mean they are bad. On the contrary, the help that we have the right now. It is about that. It would take six decades in the program but what we are seeing right now in covid19 is something that goes much faster. So what are we doing about Synthetic Biology described more broadly, and and on the order of eight things. And we start with therapies and va