Marchant, the executive director of the College of Law's Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology, and Lincoln Professor of Emerging Technologies, Law & Ethics at ASU, will address developments in the genomic era and possible approaches for bridging the scientific, legal and ethical issues they present.
"The patenting of human genes has proven to be particularly controversial, and the ACLU and other organizations have recently filed a lawsuit in New York challenging the legal validity of human gene patents," Marchant said. "A related controversy that has arisen is who 'owns' biological samples used in biomedical research, and three court decisions have held that the research institution, rather than the patient, owns their biological samples, including their genetic information."
The annual series in Chautauqua, N.Y., draws distinguished individuals, scientists, authors, educators and experts in such fields as national and international affairs, arts and humanities, business and the environment.
Chautauqua is famous for being the location where Susan B. Anthony argued for women's suffrage in 1892 and Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his "I Hate War" speech in 1936.
Marchant's research interests include the use of genetic information in environmental regulation, risk and the precautionary principle, legal aspects of personalized medicine, and regulation of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology, neuroscience and biotechnology. He teaches courses in Environmental Law, Law, Science & Technology, Genetics and the Law, Biotechnology: Science, Law and Policy, and Nanotechnology Law & Policy. He also is a professor in ASU's School of Life Sciences.