Principal investigator
Heidi Howard
Ethical, legal and social aspects of genomics and emerging technologies.
Howard is an international bioethicist working on the ethical, legal and social dimensions of genomics and AI policy, and is ELSI lead for SciLifeLab and the Data-Driven Life Science programme.
Her research covers informed consent for genomics in the clinic and for gene editing in research, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, newborn screening, the commercialisation of genomics, and methods for engaging stakeholders rather than consulting them after the fact.
She developed AI CBRN risk-evaluation methods at Google DeepMind, work that carries frontier-AI risk assessment back into the governance of data-driven life science, where the same questions about capability and misuse are now being asked.
She took her undergraduate and doctoral degrees in biology at McGill University, where her PhD in neurogenetics resulted in cloning the gene for Andermann syndrome, and continued in psychiatric genetics at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona and the Douglas Hospital in Montréal. An Erasmus Mundus fellowship took her into bioethics, completing the Erasmus Mundus Master of Bioethics in 2008, followed by ELSI work at KU Leuven and INSERM. She has advised the Council of Europe's bioethics committee, the US National Academies and the European Society of Human Genetics.