Hank Greely and Jake Sherkow discuss the science, morals, and ethics of de-extinction: bringing extinct species back to life. As lawyers with an interest in biotechnologies, Hank and Jake explain how they first got involved with de-extinciton, how scientists propose to bring species back, and discuss the potential for de-extinction technology to help restore damaged ecosystems. While discussing some potential side effects of this new process, Hank and Jake recall how a man obsessed with William Shakespeare transformed the ecosystem of New England, and how de-extinction might do the same.
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Hank Greely (BA ’74) specializes in the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to neuroscience, genetics, or stem cell research. He frequently serves as an advisor on California, national, and international policy issues. He is chair of California’s Human Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee and served from 2007-2010 as co-director of the Law and Neuroscience Project, funded by the MacArthur Foundation. Active in university leadership, Professor Greely chairs the steering committee for the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics and directs both the law school’s Center for Law and the Biosciences and the Stanford Interdisciplinary Group on Neuroscience and Society. In 2007 Professor Greely was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Greely is also a professor (by courtesy) of genetics at Stanford School of Medicine.
Jacob S. Sherkow
Jacob S. Sherkow is a Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Law and the Biosciences. Jake’s current research focuses on the intersection of patent law, biotechnology, and agency regulation. His legal scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, the Iowa Law Review, the BYU Law Review, the Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review, and the Yale Law Journal Online, while his science scholarship has appeared in Science, Nature Biotechnology, and PLoS ONE. In addition, Jake is the author of popular pieces in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Baltimore Sun, the Houston Chronicle, and the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. In addition to his legal training, Jake has several years of experience as a research scientist in molecular biology. He has held scientific research positions at Columbia University, the University of Edinburgh, McGill University, the Montreal General Hospital, the Montreal Neurological Institute, and Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Miles Traer began his academic career at UC Berkeley with a double major in Geophysics and Art History. He is currently a fifth-year PhD student in the Tectonic Geomorphology Lab modeling the evolution of the seafloor. Miles was first turned on to podcasts in 2007 and quickly became an avid consumer. Some of his favorites include The BS Report, the StarTalk Radio podcast, In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, The Nerdist, and WTF with Marc Maron. In addition to his work as a scientist, Miles works as a part-time artist, contributing the art of this website including the portraits found on each interview’s page (drawn by hand). When he’s not working on science or this podcast, you can generally find him cooking cajun gumbo and listening to blues.