Historical Background

Luis Campos, “A Little Care Before We Leap: The open letter that spurred the historic Asilomar conference turns 50,” Science (26 Sep 2024): 1424-25. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ads7339
Luis Campos, “Invoking Asilomar: The historic meeting’s legacy resists simple lessons” Science (31 January 2025). https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adv7574
Luis Campos, “The Asilomar Conference.” In Reference Module in Life Sciences, Elsevier, 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-822563-9.00030-5

Contemporary Coverage

Michael Rogers, “The Pandora’s Box Congress” Rolling Stone 189 (1975): 37-40, 42, 74, 77-78, 82.
Janet H. Weinberg, “Decision at Asilomar: Could 140 gene scientists make a sociopolitical decision? After three days of proving they couldn’t, they did.” Science News 107 (March 22, 1975): 194-5.
Janet Hopson, “Recombinant Lab for DNA and my 95 Days in it,” Smithsonian 8.3 (June 1977): 54-63
Roger B. Dworkin, "Science, Society, and the Expert Town Meeting: Some Comments on Asilomar," Southern California Law Review 51, no. 6 (September 1978): 1471-1482
Joann Rodgers, “Asilomar revisited, Science met society head on at Asilomar,” MOSAIC January/February 1981, 19-26.
Science for the People, “Open Letter to the Asilomar Conference on Hazards of Recombinant DNA.” Cambridge, MA, February 1975.
William Bennett and Joel Gurin, “Science That Frightens Scientists: The great debate on DNA,” Atlantic Monthly, February 1977, 43-62.
J. D. Watson, “Trying To Bury Asilomar,” Clinical Research 26.113 (April 1978)
Norton D. Zinder, "The Berg Letter: A Statement of Conscience, Not of Conviction," The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 10, No. 5 (Oct., 1980), pp. 14-15.

Additional materials have been shared with invited participants in advance of the meeting through direct links.

To request these links be sent again, participants may email spiritofasilomar@sciencehistory.org.