Levi Symposia
The Levi Symposium will bring together diverse experts for collaborative discourse on the critical and emerging issues surrounding blurring boundaries in the science, clinical care, and/or public health concerns about infectious and genetic diseases, and to develop a preliminary framework for thinking through the collection, storage, sharing, and use of human data at the blurring boundary.
SEPTEMBER 22, 2021
Robert H. Levi Symposium and Public Event on Infectious Disease and Genomics
Susceptibility, Surveillance, and Stigma: A Conversation on History, Infectious Disease, and Genomics
MARCH 11-12, 2019
Robert H. Levi Symposium and Public Event on Containment
Containment: Exploring the History, Politics, and Ethics of Infectious Disease Response in a Post-Genomic World
BRIDGES Phase 2 Collaboratory Meetings
BRIDGES hosted virtually (via Zoom) two Collaboratory meetings on December 4, 2020, and January 29, 2021. These meetings brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars with the aim of identifying the ELSI, historical, philosophical, and policy implications of advances in genomics for the treatment, prevention, and control of infectious diseases. The first Collaboratory Meeting focused on horizon scanning of ELSI Issues relevant to the blurring boundary between infectious and genetic diseases. The Collaboratory members developed a broad list of ELSI issues relevant to this blurring boundary using a set of six short cases and discussed the best-case studies to expand for use in the second meeting, for a deeper analysis of potential ELSI issues. The second Collaboratory Meeting focused on the selected case studies of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and Cancer/HPV to develop a preliminary ELSI research agenda. These preparations will help the BRIDGES team to prepare for a Robert H. Levi Leadership Symposium on this topic.
BRIDGES Phase 1 Workgroup Meetings
Project 1 Expert Working Group on Genetics and Infectious Diseases
In Spring 2019, BRIDGES Project 1 Working Group met three times: for a two-day in-person conference held at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD, and for two half-day WebEx conferences.
Project 2 Expert Working Group on Vaccinomics
In Spring 2017, BRIDGES Project 2 team held a discussion group of 10 vaccinomics experts following the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases’ Annual Conference on Vaccine Research in Bethesda, MD, to address the ELSI of vaccinomics, determine priority issues that needed to be addressed, and assess gaps in understanding of public values that could better inform the science or vaccinomics policy. The results of the vaccinomics expert discussion were used to inform the design of two public meetings.
There was a second meeting with experts in infectious disease to share the results of our research on the ethical, legal, and social implications of vaccinomics (which includes several public meetings and a national survey) and discuss potential policy implications. This meeting took place on the evening of March 23rd, 2020, just before the start of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases’ Annual Conference on Vaccine Research in DC.
Project 3 Issue Spotting Working Group Meetings
In Spring 2017, the BRIDGES Project 3 team engaged two stakeholder groups: 1) clinical staff in the Johns Hopkins Biocontainment Unit (BCU), and 2) members of the National Emerging Special Pathogens Training and Education Center (NETEC), a national network of BCUs. On May 4th, 2017, we held an issue-spotting meeting with BCU staff to begin developing a framework to guide inquiry about the ELSIs of incorporating genomics into the clinical management of high-consequence infections. During the discussion group, we first described relevant genomic discoveries as examples, and then engaged in open discussion to outline ethical concerns in the clinical management of high-consequence infections. We used an ELSI issue-spotting matrix to guide the discussion. We also held a second issue-spotting meeting with some members of the NETEC network on May 17th, 2017, during a Hopkins site visit.