Students To Hold Biotech Gathering

Luminaries from the worlds of biology and biomedicine will converge on the MIT campus this weekend for an entirely undergraduate-run conference that organizers say will focus on recent advances in biotechnology and the ethical questions they provoke.

The conference, which is being run jointly by the Harvard and MIT Hippocratic Societies, is expected to draw nearly 1000 people, mostly undergraduates.

Speakers will include Nature magazine editor Philip Campbell and the former governor of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rossello Gonzales.

"The purpose of this conference is to educate undergraduates about biotechnology," said Assistant Conference Director Joe P. Sterk '01.

According to Sterk, the speakers and panelists receive no speaker's fees but agree to attend the conference because of the novelty of a conference run and targeted to undergrads.

"There's no trick," Sterk said. "We just get their contact information and call."

Conference Director Praveen R. Shanbhag '02 said the conference will provide a time for undergraduates to ask tough questions of leading scientists and other figures.

"I'm looking forward to seeing how the attendees interact with the speakers and challenge them on the vital issues in biotechnology," Shanbhag said.

Although conference organizers don't have to worry about large speaker's fees, the cost of putting on the two-day conference still exceeds money brought in through registration fees.

Undergraduates attend the conference for free and the cost for professionals is $50.

Most of the loss has been covered by Harvard and MIT academic departments. Sponsors also include local biotechnology companies, the Princeton Review and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Some organizations table at the conference, but Sterk says that the conference is mainly educational.

"Networking happens. While not the sole purpose of the conference, attendees routinely engage in dialogue with speakers, and have even obtained jobs," Sterk said.

Although the conference will include many events centered on medicine and biological sciences, Sterk said some of the events will concentrate on ethical and economic issues of biotechnology.

"While we are the Hippocratic Society, the conference is not aimed entirely at pre-meds," Sterk said. "The focus extends beyond science. We bring in speakers from many different fields."

This is the fourth conference that the Harvard Hippocratic Society has organized. Online registration continues through today.