Jeantine Lunshof - United States

Dutch philosopher and ethicist Jeantine Lunshof, Ph.D., has spent her career connecting the humanities and sciences.

Today, Lunshof works at the Harvard Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and as a lecturer at Harvard Medical School. With a fascinating background that blends philosophy and medicine, she would gently challenge the label of “bioethicist.”

“It’s too specific,” she explained with a laugh.

To date, Lunshof has worked on many of our time’s pressing bioengineering ethical concerns, from CRISPR to Xenobots to organoids. At the Wyss Institute, surrounded by scientists and engineers, Lunshof will often be the only humanities person in the room.

This is a role she’s happy to be in – exploring the impact of scientific research and its translation into real-world applications. “The humanities and sciences are not really two separate worlds,” Lunshof elaborated. “On the outer ends, they are separate, but there is always a point of convergence where they meet, an essential common point of reference.”

This is a role she’s happy to be in – exploring the impact of scientific research and its translation into real-world applications. “The humanities and sciences are not really two separate worlds,” Lunshof elaborated. “On the outer ends, they are separate, but there is always a point of convergence where they meet, an essential common point of reference.”

Growing up, Lunshof’s interest in the intersection of the humanities and sciences became obvious by her choice in heroes: Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova and Polish-French physicist Marie Curie.

A voracious bookworm from an early age, Lunshof frequented her local library in Haarlem, where she found herself drawn to books about famous scientists. There was only one problem. In the 1960s, the library shelves were divided into books appropriate for girls and books appropriate for boys. The books about famous scientists, like Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Marie Curie, were on the shelves meant for boys. This did not deter her in the slightest.

“Every day after school, I went to the library and would watch for the librarian around the corner,” she recalled. “Then I would go to the bookcase and hope that nobody borrowed the book. If it was there, I would read the book quickly standing in front of the shelves for as long as I could and then come back the next day to continue or start another book I wasn’t allowed to borrow.”

Out of all the scientists Lunshof read about, she loved the book about Marie Curie the most, citing Curie as a hero and influence in her life, because she could relate to Curie’s motivation and drive to succeed in a man’s world.

Many years later, in 2013, her life had a full-circle moment when she was awarded a Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowship by the European Commission, allowing her to move to Boston and continue her work in George Church’s lab on the Personal Genome Project.

Philosophy and bioinspired engineering

What, why, and how? These are three basic philosophical questions that Lunshof has striven to answer scientifically over the course of her career. Since arriving in Boston, Lunshof has conducted research in philosophical ethics in genomic sciences and biological engineering. This is where she feels at home at the Wyss Institute.

“At the Wyss Institute, research covers much more than genomics and synthetic biology,” she said. Bioinspired engineering and the Wyss mission resonated with Lunshof and her own mission to bridge the humanities and sciences. She emphasized the differences between biotechnology and bioinspired engineering and their applications by giving the example of the exosuit project for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

This suit, while originally intended for soldiers to walk longer distances, keep fatigue away, and minimize risk of injury when carrying heavy loads, is being used at the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital in Boston and elsewhere for the rehabilitation of paralysis patients.

“This is what appeals to me,” Lunshof explained. “Being inspired by nature is what bridges the sciences and humanities because what is in the middle of that are these ideas. What’s the concept for these applications? Where did you find the idea? That is the moment you’re talking about philosophy.”

At the Church lab and later at the Wyss Institute, Lunshof established the practice of Collaborative Ethics, where the ethicist works in the lab, side by side with scientists. This close working partnership between scientists and ethicist encourages familiarity and transparency and builds mutual trust. She facilitates further collaboration by hosting open office hours.

“I announce every Friday that I’ll be sitting in a common area. Sometimes no one comes, but sometimes I’m there for three hours talking to scientists about their projects.”

The Wyss Institute employs the Innovation Funnel as a model of technology translation. The funnel maps technology development from idea conception through commercialization. Lunshof employs Collaborative Ethics with the funnel in a dynamic way and at every stage. Her role, she says, shifts slightly with every stage.

During idea conception, her role is in conceptual analysis, which is philosophical work. During technology validation, her role is normative analysis: after conceptual analysis, one must ask if any ethical questions have surfaced. During technology optimization, her role is applied ethics: what is the ethical consideration when the technology will be applied? With commercialization, her role is minimal. “You need patent lawyers and regulatory scientists, not an ethicist.”

Lunshof used this model and applied it when working on Michael Levin’s Xenobots, the world’s first self-replicating living robots. Xenobots are biologically inspired, derived from frog embryo cells that are assembled in a pattern by artificial intelligence. When approaching this problem, the first thing you have to do is answer the philosophical question of what it is. After clarifying the concept, you can then move on to answering questions, such as “Is this something to which ethics will apply?”

“Conceptually, it’s certainly not a frog, but is it an animal? Is it an organism, according to our existing criteria?” In-depth conversations with the scientists all agreed that at least this is an entirely new life form, raising entirely new questions. Such joint explorations are eye opening for all.

She was also frank about where her role as ethicist ends. “The role of ethics is limited when it comes to translation in the real world.” Her unique role, she explained, is at the early stage of the concepts and their potential ethical relevance, and that’s why Collaborative Ethics works well with the Wyss Innovation Funnel. She also sees it as one realization of her efforts to bridge the humanities and sciences.

One thing Lunshof is adamant about is her role in the lab and during discussions with scientists. “I’m not the ethics committee,” she insisted. “I’m working with the scientists, not above or below them. I sit in the same meetings, get the same information. I just ask different questions.”

The future of transatlantic collaborations

Beyond her research and work at the Wyss Institute, Lunshof is deeply involved with many working groups, including the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness, the Vaccine Working Group that was created to support research, design, and development of vaccines against COVID-19; the Belfer Center’s Technology and Public Purpose Project; and the Boston Tech Hub Faculty Working Group. She is often the rare humanities person at the table.

“What do I know about virology or science policy?” Lunshof mused. By being at the table with people from Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and more, Lunshof is learning more about virology and immunology with real-world ethical applications. It also gives her ideas about potential future transatlantic collaboration.

In terms of technology development, Lunshof finds the working groups extremely valuable and would be happy to use her interdisciplinary experience to not only be the bridge between the humanities and science, but also between the United States and the Netherlands.

The openness of American academic culture and how people interact with each was a positive surprise for Lunshof earlier in her career, and that openness is something she’d like to see applied in facilitating future connections.

According to Lunshof, it’s easier to collaborate with people from other disciplines in America because everyone is just an email away. “It would make sense to have more frequent exchanges,” she said. “I think that is really important to give mostly younger people, but also mature scientists, the opportunity to work in the US. Or also American scientists, to go to the Netherlands, for example, to be part of a project or to build connections and open up perspectives and horizons.”