Diane Beeson is co-founder and Associate Director of the Alliance for Humane Biotechnology. She is also Professor Emerita and former chair of the Department of Sociology and Social Services, California State University, East Bay. She received her PhD from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1981. She was awarded a Pew post-doctoral fellowship from UCSF’s Institute for Health Policy Studies and a visiting fellowship at Stanford University’s Center for Biomedical Ethics Program in Genomics, Ethics and Society. From 1992-1997 she served as a research associate at UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Social Change. She has authored numerous articles in professional journals and anthologies on prenatal diagnosis, genetic testing, and social challenges of new reproductive technologies. She has served as a consultant for NIH and other organizations on issues related to genetic testing, new reproductive technologies, and research methods. She was a founding member of California’s Pro-Choice Alliance Against Proposition 71 and has testified before Congress and the California legislature on issues of women’s health and the human egg trade.
We are scholars, students, and activists working for a biotechnology that places the health and welfare of people and the natural environment above financial interests.
We network, speak, and publish on the social implications of biotechnological developments, especially those concerning human genetic manipulation. Areas of interest include reproductive and genetic technologies, human egg harvesting, cloning research, disability rights, biotech patenting, human-animal hybrid research, and synthetic biology.