Engineering Life, Designing Our Futures
A Conversation on New Biological Systems
In the context of the conference, we have organized a special session to discuss with high school students their views on these new biological systems and the implications for the future of medicine and our understanding of what life is.
With this activity IBEC and EMBL would like to highlight the importance of the involvement of citizens in the processes of research and innovation and their commitment towards and open and inclusive science.
Multi-cellular engineered living systems (M-CELS) are living cellular systems engineered for specific functions. Scientists in this rapidly developing field of research are quickly learning how to test new drugs and more on actual human tissue systems grown outside the human body.
However, as with any developing research, there are many ethical questions surrounding it and we want to hear from you.
On Friday 10th July we invite 50 students for an introduction to M-CELS and to dive into an morning of conversations around the questions:
- What are these new biological systems?
- How do we decide if they’re “alive”?
- Who will benefit from this research?