Biosafety and Biosecurity (with Dr. Megan Palmer)

In this video, Dr. Megan Palmer talks about the importance of biosafety and biosecurity in the field and industry of Synthetic Biology, and steps that we can take as a society to realize those values.
Dr. Megan Palmer is the Executive Director of Bio Policy & Leadership Initiatives at Stanford University. She also leads a focus area in biosecurity in partnership with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford, and for the past ten years has led programs in safety, security, and social responsibility for the iGEM competition. She founded and serves as Executive Director of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program (LEAP), an international fellowship program in biotechnology leadership, and also spent five years as Deputy Director of Policy and Practices for the multi-university NSF Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (Synberc).
Based in the Department of Bioengineering, she works closely both with groups across the university and with stakeholders in academia, government, industry and civil society around the world. Her projects in biosecurity examine how security is conceived and managed as biotechnology becomes increasingly accessible, and she has created many programs aimed at developing and promoting best practices and policies for the responsible development of bioengineering.