Attend the 2026 Reproductive Frontiers Summit, June 16–18, Berkeley

By TsviBT, KMR @ 2026-03-22T21:18 (–4)

We’ll be hosting the 2026 Reproductive Frontiers Summit at Lighthaven in Berkeley, CA, on June 16—18. Come join us if you want to learn, connect, think, and coordinate about the future of germline engineering technology. Very early bird tickets are available now until the end of March.

Who will be there?

Our lineup of speakers includes experts in the areas of polygenic prediction, embryo gene editing, in vitro gametogenesis, artificial wombs, ethics and regulation for advanced reproductive technology, and more. See the full list on the summit website: reproductivefrontiers.org.

We hope to welcome attendees who are:

scientists (new or established) who are interested in advanced reproductive technology or reprogenetics, especially experts or future experts in:
- stem cell biology, embryology, epigenetics of the germ line, bioinformatics, polygenic prediction of traits, editing methods (especially epigenetic editing and precision gene editing), ovarian culture, gametogenesis, chromosome dynamics and engineering, low-input *omics, droplet microfluidics, and related topics;
experts on regulation and policy, financing, and public opinion around advanced reprotech;
bioethicists who want to use constructive critique to craft a practicable vision of widely beneficial germline engineering technology;
undergrads, grad students, and postdocs who are interested in these topics;
investors who want to find opportunities;
philanthropists who want to accelerate the field, especially projects that are underserved by industry and academia;
parents who want to learn more about the possibilities for expanding fertility and for making genomic choices on behalf of their future children;
and curious thinkers.

Last year

We ran this event in 2025 for the first time with the goal of inaugurating a community oriented towards the genomic emancipation of humanity. There were over 100 attendees, and speakers included polygenic prediction researcher Prof. Steve Hsu, biotech pioneer Prof. George Church, and ethics and legal expert Prof. Henry Greely.

Attendees (n=27) rated:

How strongly they would recommend others attend the next summit at 8.8/10
The talks at 8/10 (see some of the talks here: youtube.com/@BerkeleyGenomicsProject)
The conversations at 8.9/10

What this is for

The basic idea of the summit is described on the homepage linked above. To add a few points:

Advanced reprotech and reprogenetics will likely be highly beneficial to humanity in the medium term, as they are developed and made widely accessible. Much of the important work is already underway by academics (genetics, IVG research, gene editing, sequencing, etc.) and a nascent industry (polygenic embryo screening, embryo editing). However, I think that the field suffers from a cold-start problem of circular dependencies, where funding, regulation, scientific progress, and the public conversation are mutually bottlenecked on each other. One of the strengths of the LW and EA communities is the ability to think things through, reach some conclusions about what is true and what is important somewhat ahead of the curve, and then put their money where their mouth is. For that reason, if you're motivated and ready to learn and work hard, there's lots of neglected stuff in this field that you could make a difference for.
This will be a great place to learn about what's starting to be available and what might be available in the near-term and mid-term future, if:
- ...you're interested in volunteering, supporting, or working in this field;
- ...you're interested in cutting-edge tech that you could apply for your own family;
- ...you're interested in investing in or philanthropically funding these ventures.
The field of advanced reprotech and reprogenetics is not for intelligence amplification, existential risk reduction, or anything about AGI. That is an important thing to keep in mind. The field is about children, and their parents and families and guardians, and technology for supporting them. It is too great an imposition for society, or a sector of society, to subjugate individual procreative autonomy and the consent of the unborn to its instrumental purposes. So, I think that what society should coordinate around is reprogenetics for the sake of the emancipation of future children, with the immediate stewardship of parents and the guidance of clinics and counselors. See "Genomic emancipation contra eugenics". An integral part of developing reprogenetics is thinking about potential perils involved, and addressing the substantive ones with preemptive actions and ongoing adaptation. All that said, as long as that coordinated intention is the central principle of the field of reprogenetics, I believe that putting my efforts into pursuing reprogenetics—governed by that central principle—for the purposes of giving humanity more brainpower is both moral (good to do, all things considered) and ethical (doesn't break rules, e.g. for myopically-consequentialist reasons, that one shouldn't break). Giving humanity more brainpower via reprogenetics would be immensely beneficial. Besides generally empowering humanity, which is good, I think it is a good way to decrease existential risk from AGI:
- Increasing humanity's brainpower probably helps decrease AGI X-risk. See "HIA and X-risk part 1: Why it helps". There are reasons to worry that actually it would increase AGI X-risk. See "HIA and X-risk part 2: Why it hurts". More investigation would be worthwhile, but my current view is that it's good to accelerate human intelligence amplification.
- I believe that reprogenetics is the only method for strong human intelligence amplification that we have very good reason to think can be made to work well at scale any time soon (like, a few decades). See "Overview of strong human intelligence amplification methods". (Some scattered subsequent investigations on signaling molecules and BCIs have not made me more optimistic about other approaches. I'd be eager for constructive critiques of that reasoning and hopeworthy possibilities for other strong HIA methods. For example, BCIs and/or neural transplantation could offer some hope.)
- Many readers here will be thinking: Why care about this, given that AGI will come so soon? However:
  - The correct strategy in response to broad AGI timelines is a broad portfolio of many interventions, including ones that take a long time to pay off in decreased X-risk.
  - What's the long-term way to escape AGI X-risk? If we get a delay, or if AGI is fortunately difficult to create, what then? Strategically, we're back to square one. Conceptual research that can happen in stealth mode in academia under various covers will most likely proceed, leading to a rising tide of algorithmic and conceptual progress. Social regimes to suppress AGI capabilities advancement are a good pursuit but don't seem like permanent solutions to safekeep humanity's future. In fact, I don't know of any good long-term solutions. Humanity getting more brainpower is an investment in the possibility of humanity figuring things out in the long run.
  - I think that confident short timelines don't make that much sense, and I think that broad classes of arguments people make for confident short timelines aren't that compelling.
  - Even with very aggressive AGI timelines, pushing up the timeline of an intervention that only avoids existential ruin 30 or 40 or 50 years from now is still helpful. You still decrease X-risk by an amount proportional to the probability of X-ruin over the "skipped" duration; if you're saved 40 years from now rather than 45 years from now, you avoided the X-risk that is incurred over the course of those 5 years. (See "The benefit of intervening sooner", though some central background assumptions there have to be taken with a bunch of salt.)
- However, to punctuate: If you're motivated by existential risk, then you should not work in this field until you have a conceptual separation between (1) "what the field of reprogenetics is for, as a collective project; what it should coordinate around in terms of actions, concrete aims, norms, regulations, principles, and relationships as part of society" (emancipation and empowerment of future children) on the one hand, and (2) "what I want out of accelerating reprogenetics" (e.g. humanity having more brainpower) on the other hand; and you are loyal to (1) over (2), as a participant in humanity.

How you can help

Ticket purchases help to pay for the venue. We accept donations with ticket purchases and we offer supporter-tier tickets.
Come participate with an open mind and heart, with calm and earnest hope for working together to make a wonderful future for humanity.
If an organization you know might be interested in sponsoring this event, reach out. Our tiers are here: reproductivefrontiers.org/sponsorships.
Spread the word. Invite your bio friends and entrepreneur friends and investment/philanthropy friends and aspiring parents.

Happy to answer questions here or by email: reprofro2026@reproductivefrontiers.org

huw @ 2026-03-23T22:48 (+2)

What would you say to a potential attendee who has a legitimate interest in reprogenetics’ emancipatory capacity, but is concerned that the conference will be taken over by discussions of human biodiversity, especially given that two of the featured speakers, Jonathan Anomaly and Steve Hsu, have both pretty clearly endorsed HBD or at least, given the ambiguities in their statements, never explicitly refuted it?

Would you be interested in screening out certain problematic attendees or explicitly refuting human biodiversity on the conference website, in order to create an environment welcoming of open discussion of reprogenetics?

TsviBT @ 2026-03-24T02:12 (+1)

I'm not sure how to work out a version that's appropriately on-topic for the conference, but if there is such a version, I'd be eager to have someone who can explicate concerns around racism as it relates to reprogenetics give a talk. I sent several invitations in related veins but haven't gotten such a great showing on that front. If you have suggestions, feel free to LMK here or in DM.

TsviBT @ 2026-03-24T01:38 (+1)

What would you say to a potential attendee who has a legitimate interest in reprogenetics’ emancipatory capacity, but is concerned

To answer the question very literally, I would love to talk to such a person as much as they're willing, to better understand their experiences / reasons / etc.; I wouldn't necessarily be able to address everyone's concerns a priori given my current level of understanding.

In what follows I'll try to answer generically anyway:

is concerned that the conference will be taken over by discussions of human biodiversity

A few points:

Event experience. I imagine such a person might be worried about non-speaker attendees, and their ideologies and behaviors, and the resulting culture at the conference. I'm not totally sure what to say about this.
- It would not be feasible, let alone advisable, for me to try to filter attendees based on their personal views on some issue. There may be one or two hundred attendees, or more. I am the sole full-time organizer, with much appreciated but part-time support from Kali.
- Beyond feasibility, I don't know if this is advisable. I would instead intend to simply make the conference be what it is supposed to be, in terms of having good and good-hearted speakers and attendees; if there are racists who are hoping to all get together and, IDK, do whatever they do, then I would intend and hope that they would just lose interest. This is a conference for science, technology, fertility, ethics, building, etc. I think that trying to police people's attendance at an event based on their private views (if that's the proposal) is generally toxic as well as high-cost.
- In accordance with that intention, I am putting most of my recruitment efforts into finding high-quality expert academic speakers as well as speakers from pioneering tech companies, and I will be pushing for more junior scientists to attend.
- Further in accordance with that intention, I would ask people with a stake in reprotech and reprogenetics--serious scientists, parents, industry people, serious bioethicists, good-hearted altruists, etc.--to attend, and invite others to attend, and give voice to good visions for these technologies.
- That said, I do reserve the right to reject some attendees, and am willing to do so, including on the basis that they're advocating racism, racist political stances or policies, white supremacy, etc. Speakers and attendees agree to this code of conduct in order to register: https://www.reproductivefrontiers.com/code-of-conduct So, if an attendee is going around advocating for deporting brown people or something, I would be likely to have them leave.
- There are a few specific people who I would preemptively reject from attending and refund their ticket, on various grouds such as advocating racism.
Event goals. I'm in charge of the schedule, and both my personal and my professional goals are to help support the field of advanced reprotech and reprogenetics, by making the field well-resourced, sane, momentum-ful, lively, convivial, welcoming, in order to emancipate and empower future children. (With one major personal background motivation being HIA for reducing X-risk.) These goals push pretty strongly against having the field be related to racism or other extremist views.
Event topics.
- Human biodiversity (real or imagined) is pretty much entirely off-topic for this conference.
- The only relevance I'm aware of is the fact (IIUC; not an expert) that polygenic predictors trained on individuals from one ancestry group tend to transfer imperfectly to individuals from another ancestry group. (This could be for any number of reasons, some known and some unknown, e.g. different linkage disequilibrium patterns between causal variants and SNPs within different ancestry groups; environments that discriminate based on ancestry group and thereby induce different gene-outcome causal pathways; etc.) For that reason, there is a potential inequality of access to reprogenetics (and generally to genetic medicine) between ancestry groups, which argues e.g. for a better understanding of causality in genes and for more diverse data collection.
- Because human biodiversity is off-topic, there won't be talks on that topic. I suppose a speaker could "go rogue" or something. Then they wouldn't be invited back.
Event speakers.
- Dr. Anomaly is speaking because he's the spokesperson for Herasight, an embryo screening startup that is unique in offering polygenic predictions for the expected IQ of embryos. His talk is about informed choice in polygenic embryo screening.
- Prof. Hsu spoke last year because he's an expert on using big data for polygenic prediction, and he's the founder of Genomic Prediction, the first company to offer polygenic embryo screening. He gave a talk on the genomics of traits, viewable here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n64rrRPtCa8 Nothing about race as I recall.
- If a speaker were to propose to give a talk about race differences or something, I would reject that talk, but of course none have done so.
Past event experience.
- I was quite busy with operations, so I did not have a great finger on the pulse of last year's event. I regret that and will aim to do the opposite this year, though will realistically still be quite busy. So I can't speak all that well to what it was like.
- That said, my conversations were generally about fieldbuilding and science and technology and similar.