James Lee on Polygenic Prediction and Embryo Selection — #1

James Lee is a professor of psychology at the University of Minnesota. He is a leading researcher working in behavior genetics and statistical genetics. In this episode, he discusses recent progress in the genomic prediction of complex traits such as cognitive ability and educational attainment. Lee also discusses his recent Wall Street Journal editorial on embryo selection, Imagine a Future Without Sex.

Resources

• Imagine a Future Without Sex: Reproductive technology may lead us to realize too late that being human is better than playing God
• James Lee academic web page
• Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC)
• Nature Genetics: Gene discovery and polygenic prediction from a genome-wide association study of educational attainment in 1.1 million individuals

Music used with permission from Blade Runner Blues Livestream improvisation by State Azure.

Steve Hsu is Professor of Theoretical Physics and of Computational Mathematics, Science, and Engineering at Michigan State University. Previously, he was Senior Vice President for Research and Innovation at MSU and Director of the Institute of Theoretical Science at the University of Oregon.

Hsu is a startup founder (SafeWeb, Genomic Prediction, Othram) and advisor to venture capital and other investment firms. He was educated at Caltech and Berkeley, was a Harvard Junior Fellow, and has held faculty positions at Yale, the University of Oregon, and MSU.

Please send any questions or suggestions to [email protected] or Steve on Twitter @hsu_steve.

You can find Steve's writing on his blog Information Processing.

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