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.
Last year, the Progress Educational Trust (PET) conducted a poll as part of its Wellcome Trust supported project 'Genes, Ancestry and Racial Identity: Does It Matter Where Your Genes Come From?' At three public events held under this project's auspices, attendees were asked to suggest questions for PET to put to the public, and the resulting online poll elicited 637 responses...
The conference 'Genomics in Society: Facts, Fictions and Cultures' marked the 10th anniversary of the Economic and Social Research Council's Genomics Network, and also the passing of nearly ten years since the completion of the Human Genome Project...
The Progress Educational Trust's 2011 project Genes, Ancestry and Racial Identity: Does It Matter Where Your Genes Come From?, supported by the Wellcome Trust, sought to debate race and ancestry in the context of genetics and to explore the connection (or lack of connection) between genetics and the concept of 'race'...
The Public Bodies Bill - which empowers the UK Government to transfer the functions of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the country's regulator of fertility treatment and embryo research - has received Royal Assent and has become the Public Bodies Act. This Act represents the realisation in statute of the Coalition Government's longstanding plans for a 'bonfire of the quangos'...
The Public Bodies Bill - which, if passed, will allow the Government to abolish the UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority - has completed its report stage and third reading in the House of Commons...
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has decided that donors should be paid fixed sums, and that these sums should be £35 per clinic visit for sperm donors and £750 per cycle of donation for egg donors...
The future of the UK's fertility regulator has been debated by a House of Commons committee. An amendment to the Public Bodies Bill that, if passed, would have prevented the abolition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), was proposed but ultimately withdrawn by Labour MP Valerie Vaz...
The UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has published a long-awaited review of its conduct in relation to IVF specialist Mohamed Taranissi and related legal proceedings....
The UK's fertility regulator, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), has made its first set of decisions following the outcome of its recent consultation on sperm and egg donation, known as the Donation Review...
The proposed abolition of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) was debated yet again in the UK House of Lords on 28 March. Labour peer Baroness Glenys Thornton proposed and withdrew the same amendment to save the HFEA from abolition that she had previously proposed and withdrawn on 9 March....
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