Sandy Starr

PET Deputy Director

Sandy Starr is Deputy Director of the Progress Educational Trust (PET), and a member of the interdisciplinary network Embryo Model Ethics, Research, Governance and Engagement. He was Project Consultant for the Code of Practice for the Generation and Use of Human Stem-Cell-Based Embryo Models, published jointly by PET and Cambridge Reproduction, and he served on the working groups that produced the clinical practice guidance Ethical Issues in Prenatal Genetic Diagnosis and Prenatal Diagnosis and Preimplantation Genetic Testing for Germline Cancer Susceptibility Gene Variants. He has given a TEDx talk to mark the 70th anniversary of the discovery of DNA's double helix structure and the 20th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project, and he has also lectured on the life and legacy of JBS Haldane.

Sandy has addressed MPs in the UK Parliament on the subject of human embryo research, debated the morality of genetics on The Moral Maze on BBC Radio 4, been interviewed about mitochondrial donation on the BBC World Service programme Newshour and in the book Legalising Mitochondrial Donation, and appeared as a guest on the Sunrise Paper Review on Sky News. He has lectured and written about genome editing for the Thackray Museum of Medicine, and has also written about genome editing in the in the British Medical Bulletin and in the European Journal. He is author of the pamphlet AI: Separating Man from Machine, and he has lectured and written about AI in relation to the history of algorithms and the life and work of Ada Lovelace.