Bio
Christopher Thomas Scott, MLA, PhD, was the Dalton Tomlin Professor of Clinical Ethics and Research Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. From 2016-2024 he was the founding director of the Health Policy Program and the Science and Research Policy Teaching Track for medical students. He is the author of over 120 publications, books and chapters on the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of emerging biotechnologies. His NIH RO1 grants were the first ELSI awards on human genome editing, and has recieved funding from the NSF, NCI and varous foundations. He is research emeritus at Stanford and was Director of the Stanford Program on Stem Cells in Society, faculty and senior research scholar at the Center for Biomedical Ethics, and member of the Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine. Dr Scott is an associate faculty at University of British Columbia’s National Core on Neuroethics. Scott is widely published in high impact journals such as Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Methods, Nature Biotechnology, and the American Journal of Bioethics. His introductory text on stem cell biology, Stem Cell Now (Penguin/Plume) has been translated into four languages. He has taught stem cell biology to undergraduates and directed three Stanford courses on the ethics, policy and law of stem cell research. He was a contributing editor at Nature Biotechnology and served on the editorial boards of several journals. A former cell biologist, Scott was the Assistant Vice Chancellor at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and co-founded Acumen Sciences, a research and consulting company based in San Francisco. He was past President and CEO of The Stem Cell Advisors, a non-profit company providing stem cell research oversight for biotechnology companies. He is one of only a handful of senior officials awarded for their contributions to Stanford’s research enterprise. He is regularly featured in national and local coverage of ethics and policy, including ABC, BBC, NBC, PBS, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Time, U.S. News and World Report, Boston Globe, The Atlantic Monthly, Nightline, UPI, Fox, and NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Talk of the Nation, and TechNation.
