Overview

⏱️Schedule:  Doors 18:30 → Talk 19:00→ Q&A → Mingle

What happens when humanity gains the power to shape future generations? Advances in genetic screening, embryo selection, and gene editing are rapidly changing what is scientifically possible, raising difficult questions about health, disability, identity, and the line between medicine and enhancement. 

Once confined to science fiction and bioethics debates, these technologies are beginning to enter mainstream medicine and consumer culture, renewing fears about the return of eugenic thinking in a modern form.

This talk will explore the dark history of eugenics, the scientific breakthroughs that made modern genetic technologies possible, and the ethical and political debates surrounding embryo selection, germline editing, and the growing idea that human genetic selection may become increasingly normalized in the future.

What we’ll cover:

• Where did eugenics come from, and how did it emerge as a pseudoscientific field and intellectual movement?

• How did eugenics become public policy in the 19th and 20th centuries?

• How have advances in genetics and reproductive science—from IVF and genetic screening to genome editing—changed what is now possible?

• Are genetic screening companies and emerging reproductive technologies already enabling forms of trait-based selection that echo earlier eugenic ideas? 

• Where do we go from here, and what ethical, scientific, and policy questions remain unresolved?

Speaker

Carlo. G. Quintanilla, Ph.D.

Molecular Biologist and Science Policy Analyst

Carlo G. Quintanilla is a molecular biologist, a science communicator, and a Science Policy Analyst at the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Since 2022, he has been delivering public-facing lectures on the scientific and ethical dimensions of modern biotechnology, exploring how advances in gene and cell therapies intersect with questions of genetics, identity, disability, and politics. Drawing from science fiction and popular culture, he uses storytelling to engage broad audiences in conversations about the future of biotechnology. His work has been featured in Science, on NPR, and at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Annual Meeting.