History / Staff / Board of Directors / Privacy Statement / Fair Use Notice

History

The Council for Responsible Genetics fosters public debate about the social, ethical and environmental implications of genetic technologies.

Founded in 1983, CRG is a non-profit, non- governmental organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

CRG works through the media and concerned citizens to distribute accurate information and represent the public interest on emerging issues in biotechnology. CRG also publishes a bimonthly magazine, GeneWatch, the only publication of its kind in the nation.

Staff

Sujatha Byravan, PhD, President: Dr. Byravan joined CRG in August 2002. She is a molecular biologist by training, with a Ph.D. from the University of South Carolina and post-doctoral experience at the University of California at Los Angeles. Several years ago, she moved out of basic biological research because of various ethical concerns.

Moving back to her native India, she was a science writer and freelance journalist writing on a variety of topics that include science policy, gender issues and environment and politics in India. From 1995-1997 she was selected as a Fellow of Rockefeller Foundation’s LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) Program.

Dr. Byravan served as Director of the Fellows Program at LEAD International in their Secretariat in New York and later in London from early 1999 to mid- 2002. As chief architect of the Program that was delivered to over a thousand Fellows all over the world, she was responsible for all aspects of program development and activities.

Evan Lerner, Director of Communications: Evan is the Editor of GeneWatch, CRG’s bimonthly magazine, and oversees the organization's web site. He graduated from Brandeis University in 2004 with degrees in politics and philosophy. He has worked as a writer and editor at The Justice, Brandeis’ student newspaper, as well as Whats Up, a Boston-based non-profit magazine. Evan has also worked as a Research Consultant with Physicians for Human Rights, where he assisted in the group’s efforts to document and publicize the ongoing Sudanese Genocide.

Meagan Wilkins , Office Manager

Board of Directors

Paul Billings, MD, PhD, is the Chair of CRG and a Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. For many years, he has conducted investigations on the impact of genetic information and technology on society. He has been on the faculties of Harvard, UCSF, and Stanford Universities, and served as the Chief Medical Officer of the Heart of Texas Veteran’s Integrated Health Care System. Dr. Billings is on the boards of several not-for-profits, and also consults on genetic issues for a variety of organizations.

Sujatha Byravan, PhD, is President of CRG. She is a biologist by training, and moved out of basic biological research about ten years ago. She worked as a science journalist and was later selected to be a Fellow of Rockefeller Foundation’s LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development) Program. She has worked on projects that include science policy, gender issues, environment and politics. Before joining CRG, she served as Director of the Fellows Program at LEAD International, an international program on environment and development from 1998 to mid- 2002. She is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sheldon Krimsky, PhD, is the Vice Chair & Treasurer of CRG and Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy at Tufts University. Dr. Krimsky served on the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee from 1978-1981. He authored Genetic Alchemy: the Social History of the Recombinant DNA Controversy; Biotechnics and Society: The Rise of Industrial Genetics; Hormonal Chaos: The Scientific and Social Origins of the Environmental Endocrine Hypothesis. Dr. Krimsky also co-authored Agricultural Biotechnology and the Environment. He recently published results of a research study documenting growing conflict of interest among biomedical researchers with a financial interest in the commercial application of their work.

George Annas, JD, MPH, is the Edward R. Utley Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Law, Bioethics & Human Rights of Boston University School of Public Health, and Professor in the Boston University School of Medicine and School of Law. He is the cofounder of Global Lawyers and Physicians, a transnational professional association of lawyers and physicians working together to promote human rights and health.

Evan Balaban, PhD, is associate professor of psychology at McGill University. Dr. Balaban has lectured around the world on the relationship between genetics and behavior.

Rayna Rapp, PhD, is Professor of Anthropology at New York University. Her interests include gender, reproduction, health and culture, science and technology, the United States and Europe.

Tania Simoncelli is the Science Advisor to the American Civil Liberties Union, where she advises the organization on emerging developments in genetics and neuroscience and speaks and publishes on a broad range of science policy issues.
 
Peter Shorett is a graduate of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He is a former director of programs at CRG and the co-editor of Rights and Liberties in the Biotech Age.

Lola Vollen, MD, MPH, is a Visiting Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, Institute for International Studies. At Berkeley, Laurie is Director of the DNA Identification Technology and Human Rights Center and is currently working to develop a public health framework for biodefense strategy assessment. In recent years, she has developed health care systems for Save the Children in Somalia; worked with Physicians for Human Rights in former Yugoslavia; conducted an International Commission of Jurists-sponsored assessment of the Jenin Refugee Camp in the aftermath of the Israeli Defense Force’s April 2002 incursion; and worked with the Life After Exoneration Project, helping the exonerated establish lives outside of prison.

The Council for Responsible Genetics is a public interest organization that has been in the forefront of privacy rights advocacy in this new era of genetic information. We are sensitive to the need to protect the privacy of our website visitors and GeneWatch subscribers.

We do not share any information about donors, subscribers, web site visitors or others who contact us, except as required by law -- for example in the reporting of certain donors to the IRS. Our web site does not place cookies or other information on visitor’s computers.

Our web site maintains a log of the basic internet contact information from visitors to our web site such as the domain (such as .edu, .ca, .com). This information is not personally identifiable; we examine it occasionally to see how many people or what locations are using our web site.

If you send us your mailing address in the course of subscribing to our magazine, requesting information or making a donation, we will keep that information in our database. We sometimes use the database to send out CRG mailings requesting contributions or calling people's attention to an issue or event. We will not send those mailings to anyone who asks us not to, we will remove anyone from our database who asks that we do so, and we will not share our database with any person or organization outside of CRG.

Fair Use Notice

This may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving similar information for research and educational purposes. For more information, go here. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

History / Staff / Board of Directors / Privacy Statement / Fair Use Notice