Kevin M. Esvelt Session Overview

KEVIN ESVELT is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab, where he leads the Sculpting Evolution Group in advancing biotechnology safely. He was the inventor of asynthetic microbial ecosystem to rapidly evolve useful biomolecules, and subsequently helped pioneer the development of CRISPR, a powerful new method of genome engineering. In 2013, Esvelt was the first to identify the potential for CRISPR “gene drive” systems to alter wild populations of organisms. Esvelt and his colleagues chose to break with scientific tradition by revealing their findings and calling for open discussion and safeguards before building the first CRISPR. His work has been published in Nature and Science, covered by The New York Times and The Washington Post, and featured on the Netflix special, Unnatural Selection.