Over the two days of November 10-11, 2020, the Ministry of Science and Higher Education brought together practitioners and specialists from four countries and nineteen regions of Russia at the TechnoProgress Conference Center in Moscow for a critical examination of the Bioethical Issues of Genetic Technologies in Russia.
The event was organized by the Kemerovo State University, the World-class Genetic Research Center of Biological Safety and Technological Independence, the Russian Association for Human Reproduction, the Krasnaya Gorka Center for Family Health and Reproduction, and the All-Russian Research and Technological Institute of Poultry (Russian Academy of Sciences).
The interdisciplinary platform united academics, students, and government officials, who discussed the ethical challenges posed by the achievements of Russian geneticists. The conference was structured to foster discussion around two core themes: Bioethical Aspects of Medical Genetics and Genetic Technologies in Agriculture.
Other issues included bioethical norms and contemporary domestic legislation. The event also featured socio-humanistic issues of genetics and its role in the biological safety of the Russian Federation.
The speakers touched upon such issues as the socio-cultural contexts of genetics, ethical problems of genomic technologies in prenatal diagnostic testing, ethical aspects of inherited immune system disorders, ethical dilemmas of perinatal palliative care, bioethical aspects of gender selection, etc.