• “Best Practices” in public/private partnerships to bring agricultural biotechnology to the developing world. Related issues: regulation in developing world; capital investment in local private sector; translation of developing world research into products; liability concerns of private partners in technology transfer; cultural resistance to investment in agriculture; public opinion of biotechnology in Africa, conflict between U.S. support and European/NGO opposition. Conference planned for October 3-7, Bellagio Center, Bellagio, Italy. Final report, December 2005.
  Rockefeller Project
  
  
• Mitigating the negative impact of European policies on biotech agriculture on the developing world. European resistance to biotech agriculture has led developing countries to abandon their own domestically developed products—even for purely domestic use -- for fear of European trade reprisals. Examples of the negative impact of developing world decision making abound, from Egypt to Peru. Partner. Research carried out in trips to FAO, Rome, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, as well as in Europe – Paris, Brussels, The Hague. Discussion sin Washington with officials at World Bank, IFRI, Partnership to Cut Hunger in Africa, EU mission, Brooking Institution, German Marshall Fund. Related Program: Dr. Sandy Thomas, Director of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics, “The Use of Genetically Modified Crops in Developing Countries.” Sandy Thomas. Potential partner: German Marshall Fund.
  
  
• Biodefense and Biopreparedness -- How Secure is Secure? What are the links between biopreparedness and combating infectious diseases? 20 Billion dollars have been spent on homeland security – what has and has not been accomplished? How successful has BioShield been in attracting private investment in biodefense? What further measures need to be taken to persuade private business to invest in biodefense? What are the potential moral and ethical choices and issues involved in biodefense events or infectious disease outbreaks? Related program: Preparing for the Inevitable: Bioterrorism and Emerging Infectious Diseases, June 9 th, 2005, featuring Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Dr. George Poste, Dr. Tara O’Toole. Preparing for the Inevitable Program
  
  
• State Department ‘Perspectives in the Future of Science and Technology (PFST) Conference Series’. These bi-annual meetings will bring together US and EU policy makers with scientists from each continent to discuss future science issues that will require policy action. At inception of program, Cynthia Schneider and LSSI will serve as co-Secretariat of the program together with a team from Tufts and the Kennedy School at Harvard – Dr. Debby Nutter and Dr. Robert Stowe. Dr. Schneider and LSSI will plan and host four conferences over a period of two years, and will work with Harvard and Tufts on the planning of their four conferences.
  
  
• Redesign Science and Technology training for State Department career officers. In collaboration with George Washington and Tufts University and with scientific professional societies in Washington. Partner: Prof. Charles Weiss, School of Foreign Service.
  
  
• Individualized medicine: where the rubber meets the road. Meetings between Health Policy Institute researchers in insurance policy and experts in different aspects of individualized medicine – scientists, legal scholars, and bioethicists. Goal: to draw a practical roadmap of how the potential and practice of individualized medicine will interface with health care insurance coverage. Participants: Health Policy Studies, Center for Law and the Public’s Health at Georgetown and John Hopkins Universities, Department of Bioethics, Department of Clinical Bioethics.