A Scientific Reckoning Returns

Spring 2025
By Silvia Cernea Clark
Photos courtesy of Science History Institute

On a Sunday afternoon in late February, an unusual gathering assembled in a large redwood auditorium on the scenic grounds of a Northern California state park to commemorate a landmark event in the history of science. 

The setting lent a majestic aura to the occasion. The Asilomar State Beach and Conference Grounds in Pacific Grove — a breeze-swept hillside shaded by pines and cypresses and dotted with early 20th-century buildings made of native stone and wood — rises gently above the Pacific, blending into protected dune habitat to the northwest. 

Fifty years earlier, on these very grounds, the 1975 International Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules had brought together leading molecular biologists, along with a few legal experts and journalists, to debate the potential risks of a new and powerful scientific tool — recombinant DNA. 

In the early 1970s, scientists at two U.S. academic laboratories had figured out how to cut and fuse DNA from different species, such as viruses and bacteria, and then introduce the engineered genetic material into host cells, enabling them to not only modify their behavior, but also to pass down the new traits to future generations of cells. Shaping living forms had hitherto been a province of divine authority; now, it was a tool in the hands of man. Could mankind be trusted with such powers?

Stanford University’s Stanley Cohen and University of California San Francisco’s Herbert Boyer applied for a patent on the technology in 1974. That same year, Stanford scientist Paul Berg, along with 10 other leading researchers in the field, signed a letter calling for a voluntary pause on experiments deemed high-risk, until the scientific community could meet to discuss whether, and under what conditions, to resume work. 

The 1975 Asilomar Conference was the stage where this unprecedented act of professional self-governance played out — shaping the design of biosafety levels for classifying the risks of recombinant DNA experiments, as well as the development of fail-safe model organisms that could not exist outside of the laboratory. The summit had a direct impact on safety protocols governing how research would be carried out in laboratories across the country in the decades to come.

The Asilomar Conference of 1975 has become a touchstone, invoked whenever society faced the advent of a new technology ushering in unpredictable new powers — and potential dangers. Scientific and technological breakthroughs — from CRISPR-based gene-editing tools to artificial intelligence — have each served as an occasion to ask, “Is this another Asilomar moment?”
 

An “extraordinary and improbable assembly”

Luis Campos, a Rice historian who is the leading expert on the proceedings, prehistory and aftermath of the 1975 conference, was among the first to address the audience at the opening of the anniversary summit, titled “The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology.” It was, as Campos described it, an “extraordinary and improbable assembly of people crafted in an effort to grapple with some of the challenges and criticisms of the summit in 1975.”

Together with colleagues at the Science History Institute and Stanford University, Campos, an esteemed historian of science, was the lead architect of the anniversary summit. 

In his welcome address, Campos outlined the three dominant and competing narratives that govern how the 1975 conference is remembered and invoked: as a model of self-governance and ethical responsibility; as an exercise that was detrimental to scientists and their craft, needlessly calling into question and disrupting scientific practice; or as an elitist, exclusionary and self-serving attempt to subvert regulation and oversight.

Despite all these different understandings, he continued, “I think we can appeal to and invoke a different kind of spirit of Asilomar, one that involves coming together face to face. … I want to encourage you to take advantage of this remarkable gathering in the same place where these discussions took place, to weave together past, present and future.”
 

A spirit of invitation

“The Spirit of Asilomar” 2025 summit intentionally drew together a wider variety of constituencies, perspectives and expertise than its predecessor. The number of attendees was more than double that of the original, comprising researchers at different stages in their careers — undergraduates to Nobel Prize winners — and from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, countries and institutions, as well as regulators and policymakers, social scientists and humanists, industrial entrepreneurs, artists and journalists. Notably, the summit included a cohort of 60 next-generation leaders. 

The schedule vastly expanded the original debate around recombinant DNA by focusing on five overlapping themes: pathogens research and biological weapons; the advances and risks at the intersection of AI and biotechnology; synthetic cells, and the dangers and benefits of engineering living organisms from scratch; the deployment of biotechnologies beyond conventional limits, in bodies and environments; and framing biotechnology’s futures.

“The Spirit of Asilomar” summit upheld the expectation for tangible outcomes to serve as a reference for present and future biotechnology research and governance. Post-conference, participants are expected to review and revise the statements, called “entreaties,” and decide whether to add their names to the list of signatories. At least 30 summit participants must agree to be named as authors or endorsers for an entreaty to be published, archived and made publicly available.

What brings Rice to Asilomar in 2025?

The presence of Rice faculty and students at Asilomar in 2025 is a reflection of the university’s strengths in synthetic biology and computational research, complemented by work on science policy, ethics and history at both Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and the School of Humanities. 

In the early 2000s, as synthetic biology was coalescing as a discipline, Rice was already positioning itself at the forefront. A group of faculty from departments across the schools of natural sciences and engineering and computing helped establish the nation’s first dedicated Ph.D. program in synthetic biology. Among them were Rice bioscientists Yousif Shamoo and Joff Silberg, both of whom traveled to Pacific Grove for the summit.

“Asilomar was about concerns about the ability to put DNA together, and synthetic biology is about programming cells with synthetic DNA circuits,” says Silberg, who programs cells to function as living electronic sensors. “At Rice, we have a unique ecosystem of synthetic biologists spread across campus in different departments. We started the Ph.D. program to address the need for a specialized curriculum for synthetic biology.”

The Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology Ph.D. Program grew from an initial cohort of seven in 2013 to over 70 today. It is a top destination for students in synthetic biology, regularly outcompeting the other leading synthetic biology programs in the U.S. for the best rising scholars.

“The SSPB program is now arguably the best in the nation,” says Shamoo, who researches how bacterial pathogens emerge from the environment and evolve and adapt over time, for instance, by developing antibiotic resistance. In 2024, the university launched the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute, which is working to translate synthetic biology research into real-world applications, from living therapeutics to self-repairing materials and biological-electronic interfaces. 

Shalini Yadav, RSBI’s executive director, participated in the summit to think through ways that synthetic biology could help shape “circular economies” to address challenges such as growing global waste, the toll of disease and food insecurity.

“I am particularly thrilled that RSBI was able to sponsor six graduate students and four scholars from institutions in the southern U.S. to attend the summit,” Yadav says. “Our next-generation leaders are a force to be reckoned with.”

When Campos was hired in 2022, Silberg recalls he and his fellow synthetic biologists rejoiced that a scholar who specializes in the history of their field was coming to Rice. “It’s very rare for a discipline to permeate that many schools on a campus,” Silberg says.
 

Biosecurity, AI and beyond conventional containment

In 1975, only a handful of labs around the world could engage in the kind of research that came under debate at Asilomar, and the discussion was centered on containment and biosafety — how to ensure that potentially hazardous biological agents do not accidentally escape those labs. The question of biosecurity — measures to prevent or counteract the use of biotechnologies with the intent to cause harm — was considered outside the scope of the meeting. In 2025, taking a stance against bioweapons and working to strengthen cultural norms around this issue is an important outcome expected from the summit. 

“I think having a clear statement that condemns the development of offensive bioweapons as a terrible idea is valuable,” says Shamoo, who was part of the working group on pathogens research and biological weapons.

In the lead-up to the 2025 Asilomar summit, the Nobel Prize awards for physics and chemistry recognized scientists whose research falls outside the traditional outlines of those disciplines, placing AI at the heart of discussions about the future of scientific inquiry, including with respect to biotechnology. AI is accelerating the analysis of genomic and metagenomic data, offering insights into diseases and pathogen ecosystems, as well as potential solutions. At the same time, these capabilities raise the risk of misuse and bring up the question of where to focus risk assessment and mitigation efforts.

Rice computational biologists Todd Treangen and Vicky Yao led discussions on topics at the intersection of AI and biotechnology, such as data access and governance. Treangen works on computational solutions to emerging problems in pandemic tracking and synthetic DNA screening, and Yao uses computational methods to explore important questions about diseases such as neurological disorders and cancer. 

“The discussion focused on guardrails but also on the potential benefits of this research,” Yao says. “As a scientist, I’m not usually part of conversations on policy and governance, so this was a unique and eye-opening experience.”

In 2025, the deployment of engineered organisms beyond conventional containment — in bodies and ecosystems — is at the forefront of debate. Bioengineered organisms are now used at industrial scales as part of drug production, such as insulin, and in agriculture, and could help address challenges like the accumulation of pollutants in the environment, resource scarcity, a changing climate and biodiversity loss. 

Some conversations considered the development of environmental safety levels (modeled after the biological safety levels framework) for the deployment of engineered organisms in open systems, like soil or water. Overall, discussions focused less on drawing clear regulatory lines than on the need for an inclusive, deliberative process to address questions of deliberate release. 

“Some were frustrated we didn’t get further, but for me, this was the first leg of a relay race,” says Silberg. 
 

The new historic moment

As with the original meeting, the 2025 Asilomar summit engendered frustration and disagreement. Nonetheless, disagreement is one of the faces of engagement, and making room for dissent was part of the “spirit” of the meeting from the outset. However, Campos says he was “not expecting to convene a summit where the present moment itself would feel like a historic moment.”

The 2025 Asilomar conference took place as federal funding mechanisms for scientific research in the U.S. became the subject of dramatic budget cuts under a new administration. The profound effects of the looming withdrawal of public funding from the scientific enterprise was lost on no one at the meeting. These circumstances lent renewed urgency to the exercise of coming together and the value of disagreement as part of a deliberative process. They also rendered questions about the future of scientific governance more poignant: 50 years from now, what will Asilomar come to stand for?
 

‘The next-generation leaders have got this.’

Among the many voices present at the 50-year anniversary event, the cohort of younger researchers stood out — not just as participants, but as organizers, facilitators and catalysts for change. Their opening statement underscored a commitment to governance, innovation and collaboration in shaping biotechnology’s future. 

“[T]he work we are laying out this week will take years to kick start, decades to implement and forever to maintain,” the statement reads. “We currently exist at a rare moment in time where extraordinary uncertainty creates opportunity for extraordinary creativity. … We must invest as much energy into supporting accessible, equitable, and democratic social structures surrounding our technology as we do the technology itself.”

An important area of focus is the ethical development of biotechnology in relation to bioprospecting — the extraction and commercial exploitation of biological resources, often from biodiversity-rich regions like the Amazon. Indigenous perspectives — often overlooked in traditional scientific spaces — offer alternative worldviews that emphasize holistic, communal and sustainable decision-making, prioritizing long-term ecological balance over short-term profit. 

These next-generation leaders plan to integrate such frameworks in ongoing discussions, recognizing that biotechnology’s benefits cannot come at the expense of the communities and ecosystems that provide its raw materials. Their goal is to help shape a future where biotechnology serves not just the privileged few, but the world at large.
 

Asilomar’s Creative Side

Art provided a critical point of inflection for the technical and ethical dimensions of “The Spirit of Asilomar” summit.

The first day of the conference, attendees were invited “to pass down the boardwalk toward the beach” and participate in a ceremonial act of remembrance and reflection. The exercise was a way to acknowledge and grapple with the fraught legacy of the 1975 conference, but also to consider “what alternatives might be possible.”

“The Choreography of CRISPR,” a performance by Pigeonwing Dance, a New York City-based contemporary dance company, recast the mechanics of DNA editing in a surprising dimension by stripping the technique down to a series of verbs — twist, fold, cut, replicate and repeat, etc. 

An installation featuring a vat of bioluminescent indigoidine — an indigo-like dye —produced by bioengineered yeast staged a reflection on the hubris and promise of synthetic biology. On the one hand, engineered organisms “toil in industrial bioreactors on gleaming factory floors and die by the trillions for our gain.” On the other, producing the dye via biosynthesis is more environmentally friendly and sustainable than chemical synthesis, which involves the use of “toxic chemicals, disproportionately impacting the Global South.”

“The Spirit of Asilomar” summit was sponsored in part by Rice’s School of Humanities, the Ken Kennedy Institute, the Rice Sustainability Institute, the Creative Ventures Fund and Rice Synthetic Biology Institute. Luis Campos is Rice’s Baker College Associate Professor for History of Science, Technology and Innovation; faculty scholar at Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy; and co-director of the Program in Science and Technology Studies. Yousif Shamoo is Rice’s Ralph and Dorothy Looney Professor of BioSciences. Joff Silberg is Rice’s Stewart Memorial Professor of BioSciences. Shalini Yadav is executive director of the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute. Todd Treangen is associate professor of computer science at Rice. Vicky Yao is assistant professor of computer science at Rice.