Biotechnology research and policy expert joins ASU through World Economic Forum fellowship

Thunderbird School of Global Management and the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University are pleased to host Kevin Doxzen as a recipient of the World Economic Forum’s Hoffmann Fellowship for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which offers early-career academics the opportunity to work at the intersection of society, science and technology.

Doxzen’s two-year joint appointment is part of a cutting-edge collaboration between World Economic Forum's Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR) in San Francisco and the two ASU schools based on the Downtown Phoenix campus. As a Hoffmann fellow, Doxzen will lead transnational projects that explore and tackle global policy and governance challenges in health care driven by emerging biotechnologies such as gene editing and synthetic biology.

"We’re thrilled to have Kevin in this high-impact role, which gives us an opportunity to re-imagine precision medicine by leveraging new biotech in developing countries in spite of low-resource challenges,” said Sanjeev Khagram, Thunderbird’s director general and dean.

“Kevin’s experience and expertise in genome-editing research and policy position him to be a difference-maker on a global scale through this prestigious fellowship. Working with faculty, administrators and professionals spanning the worldwide networks of Thunderbird, ASU Law and WEF, he will advance scholarship and experimentation in an international community to create resilient, robust governance frameworks that guide emerging biotechnologies such as CRISPR for the benefit of humanity,” Khagram said.

“ASU Law, through its Center for Law, Science and Innovation, and Thunderbird have a long history of working with WEF at the intersection of law, governance and emerging technologies,” said Di Bowman, ASU Law’s associate dean for international engagement. “Partnering with WEF’s C4IR to host esteemed Hoffmann Fellows represents a new and exciting chapter in our collaboration and we are delighted to welcome Kevin as our first fellow.”

“Global health care challenges depend on global solutions that harness scientific and technological advances from diverse sectors and disciplines,” said Genya Dana, head of health care transformation at the World Economic Forum. “We are excited to welcome Kevin to the Forum’s C4IR to help us lead efforts to ensure that emerging biotechnologies support equitable and ethical health and health care advances. We look forward to this collaboration with leading-edge partners at ASU to design and pilot new business models, policies and collaborative approaches to supporting the translation of cutting-edge science into treating and even curing rare diseases, blood disorders and cancers.” 

“The coronavirus pandemic and the new era of biotechnology associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution that COVID-19 is accelerating highlight the vital importance of the work Kevin has already started,” said Professor Landry Signé, search committee chair and senior director of Thunderbird’s Fourth Industrial Revolution and Globalization 4.0 Center. “And as a Hoffmann fellow at ASU, he’ll continue tapping into a global spectrum of experts to advance both practice and policy in next-generation precision medicine, producing new knowledge and high-tech health care tools with real-world impact.”