2020 Inaugural HTT Symposium

2020 Inaugural HTT Symposium, Sept. 15, 2020, Webinar

Topic: COVID-19: Harnessing a Transformational Pandemic

The first HTT symposium, planned for October 2020, was meant to focus on the intersection of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, and the potential impacts of the two fields.  In a matter of weeks, however, the COVID-19 pandemic completely transformed the lives of people worldwide—how they live, travel, work, and interact—and in eight short months the novel disease has claimed a million lives.

The pandemic has raised profound questions about how science, security, society, ethics, and the law will be transformed. As a result, the symposium series was restructured, and the first webinar, “COVID-19: Harnessing a Transformational Pandemic,” was held on September 15, 2020. Over 700 participants registered for the event. 

LANL facilitated the symposium, drawing on decades of transformational scientific research, such as harnessing the atom, high performance computing, the Human Genome Project, and pioneering work in the study of major infectious diseases, including HIV. 

Bringing together renowned experts in science, law, and government, the symposium offered a detailed view of the broad scientific and societal transformations of the COVID-19 pandemic.