Dr. Lee M. Silver

Dr. Lee M. Silver, FAAAS is a professor at Princeton University in the Department of Molecular Biology and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He also has joint appointments in the Program in Science, Technology, and Environmental Policy, the Center for Health and Wellbeing, the Office of Population Research, and the Princeton Environmental Institute, all at Princeton University. In 1973, he received a Bachelor’s degree (magna cum lauda with distinction) and a Master’s degree in physics from the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1978, he received a doctorate in biophysics from Harvard University. Before arriving at Princeton in 1984, he trained at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Cancer and the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, which was directed by Nobel Laureate James D. Watson.
 
Lee’s newest book is Challenging Nature : The Clash of Science and Spirituality at the New Frontiers of Life. Matt Ridley, author of Genome and The Red Queen says Challenging Nature is “imbued with courage, suffused with humanity and written with grace.” The philosopher and author Peter Singer calls it “a provocative and sorely needed book”, with a “rich array of arguments [that] will force you to think afresh about many cherished preconceptions.” Michael Gazzaniga, a leading American neurobiologist and member of President Bush’s Council on Bioethics says it is a “spectacular and riveting book that puts those who reason by assertion of prior traditions on the run. [Challenging Nature] makes you think and rethink the most basic questions about the nature of human existence. I say Bravo!”
 
His previous book is Remaking Eden: How Genetic Engineering and Cloning Will Transform the American Family, published in 16 languages. He is also the coauthor of an undergraduate textbook in genetics, the single author of Mouse Genetics, a textbook for professionals, and editor of Teratocarcinoma Stem Cells published in 1983. In 1993, he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In 1995, he received an unsolicited 10 year National Institutes of Health MERIT award. He has published over 180 scientific articles in the fields of genetics, evolution, reproduction, embryology, computer modeling, and behavioral science, and other scholarly papers on topics at the interface between biotechnology, law, ethics, and religion. Read the complete list of his publications!
 
Lee has been elected to the governing boards of the Genetics Society of America and the International Mammalian Genome Society. He was a member of the New Jersey Bioethics Commission Task Force formed to recommend reproductive policy for the New Jersey State Legislature, and has testified on reproductive and genetic technologies before U.S. Congressional and New York State Senate committees. He has appeared on numerous television and radio programs including NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, the Jim Lehrer PBS News Hour, Nova, ABC Nightline, The ABC World Report with Peter Jennings, the Charlie Rose Show, 20/20, 60 Minutes, and many others in the U.S. and other countries. Read the complete list of his media appearances.