Past Tuesday Talks — Synthetic Biology, Space and the Next 500 Years
Tuesday, November 28th
Presented by Seema Kumar, CEO, Cure
It was an eye-popping Tuesday Talk where we got a glimpse into the future from one of the top synthetic biologists in the world. Weill Cornell’s Christopher Mason Ph.D., is also studying the genetic and physiological impacts of space travel on the human organism for NASA – and has done some deep thinking about the future of humans in his book The Next 500 Years and his latest book The Age of Prediction.
Tuesday Talks — Synthetic Biology, Space and the Next 500 Years
Topic: A fireside chat to talk future with one of the top synthetic biologists in the world.
Speakers: Christopher Mason Ph.D., Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction. Moderated by Seema Kumar, CEO of Cure
Featured Speakers
About Christopher Mason, Ph.D.
Dr. Christopher Mason is a Professor of Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction. He is also co-Founder and scientific director at Onegevity/Thorne, co-Founder and global director at Biotia, Founder of MetaSUB, and author of The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds and The Age of Prediction. Dr. Mason and his lab develop and deploy computational and experimental methodologies to identify the functional genetic elements of the human genome and metagenome. We perform research in three main areas: (1) clinical genetics, including molecular profiling of aggressive cancers, unusual diseases, and astronauts, (2) computational biology, including new biochemical and computational techniques in DNA/RNA sequencing and DNA/RNA base modifications, and (3) synthetic biology for new cell and genome modifications. In the long term, these systems-based methods will enable an understanding of the functional elements of the human genome and metagenome, such that we can begin to repair or re-engineer these genetic networks for ameliorating disease and lay the foundation to enable long-term human survival.
About Seema Kumar
Seema joined Cure Experience in 2022 as the Chief Executive Officer. Prior to Cure, Ms. Kumar spent nearly 20 years at Johnson & Johnson in senior leadership roles, including most recently as the Global Head, Office of Innovation, Global Health and Scientific Engagement, and served on J&J’s Innovation Strategy, Public health leadership and the COVID-19 vaccine steering committee, where she led the company’s external affairs efforts and public education program on COVID and vaccine literacy. Before her tenure at J&J, Ms. Kumar was the Chief of Staff to Dr. Eric Lander and the Chief Communications Officer at the Whitehead Institute/Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Genome Research where she played a leadership role in the Human Genome Project. She also has held leadership positions at the U.S. National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the National Institutes of Health, and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Ms. Kumar holds an M.S. in Science Journalism and Communications from the University of Maryland.
