Carleton Convo with Françoise Baylis | April 5, 2024

Carleton Convos

Françoise Baylis CM, ONS, PhD, FRSC, FCAHS, FISC delivered the Carleton convocation address on Friday, April 5 from 10:50 to 11:50 a.m. in Skinner Chapel. Her address, “Altered Inheritance: The Era of Designer Babies,” discussed the ethics surrounding human genome editing and delved into her work on the subject.

Baylis is distinguished research professor, emerita at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is a philosopher whose innovative work in bioethics, at the intersection of policy and practice, has stretched the boundaries of the field. Her work challenges people to think broadly and deeply about the direction of health, science, and biotechnology, and aims to move the limits of mainstream bioethics and develop more effective ways to understand and tackle public policy challenges.

Baylis is the author of Altered Inheritance: CRISPR and the Ethics of Human Genome Editing, which won the 2020 PROSE Award in Clinical Medicine. In a review of the book for The New York Review, Natalie de Souza wrote, “She offers an authoritative, comprehensive guide to the ethical issues around CRISPR, and her central message is clear: heritable human genome editing shouldn’t be treated as inevitable, and the decision to undertake it should be a collective one.” In a review of the book for Science, Adam Hayden wrote, “Commitments to justice, responsibility, accountability, and consensus building are features of a socially just science and bioethics. Toward this end, Altered Inheritance is a foundational tool in the path ahead.”

Baylis was a member of the planning committees for the first and third International Summit on Human Gene Editing (2015 and 2023), a member of the WHO Expert Advisory Committee on Developing Global Standards for Governance and Oversight of Human Genome Editing (2019–21), and a member of the WHO Working Groups on a Global Guidance Framework for the Responsible Use of the Life Sciences (2021). She is a member of the governing board for the International Science Council and vice chair of its Committee for Freedom and Responsibility in Science.

Baylis is a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Nova Scotia, as well as an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, and the International Science Council. In 2022, she was awarded the Killam Prize for the Humanities, Canada’s most distinguished award for humanities scholars.

Learn more about Carleton Convos at go.carleton.edu/convocations