Biolaw is an area of law that addresses the intersection of law and the biosciences. Biolaw addresses topics from
CRISPR
CRISPR (; acronym of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. Each sequence within an individual prokaryotic CRISPR is d ...
to
genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification or genetic manipulation, is the modification and manipulation of an organism's genes using technology. It is a set of Genetic engineering techniques, technologies used to change the genet ...
to the patenting of new forms of life to
de-extinction
De-extinction (also known as resurrection biology, or species revivalism) is the process of generating an organism that either resembles or is an Extinction, extinct organism. There are several ways to carry out the process of de-extinction. Cloni ...
law. The Association of American Law Schools has had a chartered section on biolaw since 2010.
The field of biolaw has been of growing importance in the last several years with the rise of legal issues such as those surrounding biohacking, reproduction, surrogacy, and de-extinction.
Academic Venues
The field of biolaw has several academic venues associated with it. Two conferences were held in the Fall of 2007: one was hosted by
Jim Chen
Jim Chen is an American legal scholar known for his expertise in constitutional law. He holds the Justin Smith Morrill Chair in Law at Michigan State University College of Law. From 2007 to 2012, he served as the dean of the University of Louis ...
at
Brandeis Law School (“Law and the Biosciences”) and another by Professo
Andrew W. Torrance at the
University of Kansas
The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...
School of Law (the
Biolaw Conference). Torrance then hosted the Biolaw Conference annually until 2011. Professor
Hank Greely
Henry T. "Hank" Greely is an American lawyer, a leading authority on the ethical, legal, and social implications of new biomedical technologies, particularly those related to genetics, assisted reproduction, neuroscience and stem cell research.
...
, who was an invited speaker at the first Biolaw Conference, Torrance, and Professors
I. Glenn Cohen and
Nita Farahany then cofounded the annua
Bio Lawlapalooza holding it first in the Spring of 2017, and annually after that, though the 2020 and 2021 meetings were canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
References
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