Future of Regulation: Meet the 2025 Bertolino Impact in Government Scholarship Winner
What happens when scientific advancement outpaces regulatory frameworks? This fascinating episode features a conversation with Sakethram Ramakrishnan, our 2025 Bertolino Impact in Government Scholarship recipient, who offers a thought-provoking glimpse into the regulatory landscape of the future.
Saketh brilliantly unpacks the far-reaching implications of the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision overturning Chevron deference, a critical principle that previously allowed regulatory agencies to interpret ambiguous laws. Without this flexibility, we face a potential regulatory vacuum in rapidly advancing fields like biotechnology and artificial intelligence. Through his scholarship submission, Saketh presents a compelling vision of a future where parents visit “trait selection clinics” to choose genetic modifications for their children without adequate oversight, all stemming from today’s regulatory decisions.
What makes this conversation particularly powerful is how Saketh grounds futuristic predictions in current scientific milestones, referencing Penn Medicine’s anticipated breakthrough in 2025 that could produce the first legally approved “designer baby” using CRISPR technology. As a first-year college student entering a bioinformatics program with aspirations for an MD-PhD or MD-JD, Saketh represents a new generation of interdisciplinary thinkers working to bridge critical gaps between science, healthcare, and policy. His commitment to ensuring equitable access to medical breakthroughs for underserved communities reminds us what’s truly at stake in these regulatory discussions.
Transcript
Speaker 1: 0:01
This podcast is for educational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice and does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal assistance about a legal problem, contact an attorney. Welcome back to Know your Regulator the podcast that inspires you to engage. I’m your host, simone Murphree, and in this special episode, we are shining a light on the future of regulation. I’m joined by our 2025 Bertolino Impact in Government Scholarship recipient, saket Ram Ramakrishnan. This year’s topic was how will the recent US Supreme Court decisions and the current makeup of the Supreme Court change what the future regulatory world looks like in 50 years, and Saket submitted an incredible video imagining the future in biotech and AI regulations. Thank you so much for joining me today and congratulations again.
Speaker 2: 0:51
Thank you, Simone. It’s a real honor to join you today and I’m quite excited to dig into this topic and share my thoughts on where regulation could go in the future.
Speaker 1: 1:00
Yeah, absolutely. Your submission centered around the 2024 Supreme Court decision overturning Chevron deference. Can you talk about what that means and why you chose that?
Speaker 2: 1:13
Absolutely. Chevron deference was a key principle where courts deferred to regulatory agencies’ interpretations of ambiguous laws. Essentially, if Congress passed a law that wasn’t crystal clear, agencies like the FDA and EPA could fill in those gaps. But when the Supreme Court overturned Chevron in 2024, the courts rather than the agencies are now responsible for interpreting laws, and the agencies lose the flexibility they once had to interpret these ambiguities.
Speaker 2: 1:42
Now, this decision was important because it effectively froze regulatory progress, especially in fields where rapid scientific advancement often outpaces legislation. More specifically, my work in computational biology and medicine inspired me to focus on this issue. I’ve seen firsthand how science can advance rapidly, but it’s often stymied by the pace of policy. During my research at Argonne National Lab, I worked in the intersection between AI and biology, and this ranged from things like genome mining to drug discovery, and the thing that became quite clear to me was, while we have these incredible advancements in technology, the legal and regulatory frameworks often can’t keep up, and when these laws fall behind, it’s not just bureaucratic inefficiency, it becomes a moral and ethical problem, and that’s why I chose this topic. I genuinely think it will have profound effects on everything from gene editing to climate policy.
Speaker 1: 2:38
That’s such a deep dive into such an interesting and niche topic too and, like you said it’s I mean we’re seeing these advancements of these technologies rapidly and will we see, you know, the law and these lawmakers catch up, and will they be able to keep up with it? Not even catch up? I really liked in your submission that you talked about you know where do we draw the line. You were looking ahead at the year 2075 with the trait selection clinics. Can you summarize that scenario for us?
Speaker 2: 3:16
Sure. So I speculate that in 2075, with these biotech advancements like gene editing and AI, parents might walk into trait selection clinics and choose genetic modifications for their future children, things like muscle density, eye color or even cognitive abilities. And the twist here is that these choices wouldn’t be actively regulated by the government, especially after the Supreme Court’s decision to limit agency interpretation. These regulators weren’t able to keep pace with that innovation, and by 2075, a kind of regulatory vacuum emerged. Technologies like gene editing moved faster than the laws could catch up, and so by the time regulators tried to act, it was already too late. No one stopped these advances, but instead society simply let them unfold with no clear rules or morals in place.
Speaker 1: 4:10
Yeah, and it’s so. It definitely felt very real and is a scenario that we are, you know, probably likely to see. But you tied the future to real science that’s happening right now. You referenced the CHOP Penn Medicine gene therapy success in 2025. Can you tell me a little bit more about that?
Speaker 2: 4:32
Yeah, of course. So in 2025, researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, abbreviated as CHOP, and Penn Medicine, used CRISPR technology to treat a baby with a genetic disorder, and this was quite a breakthrough because it made headlines as the first legal designer baby with genetic editing. Now it wasn’t just about saving life, but improving upon it, and this quite stuck with me because it wasn’t just some science fiction story that we hear about, but it was real life. It happened right then and there, and it made me think about how this kind of technology could evolve rapidly, but how our regulatory systems can’t evolve that fast, and this breakthrough, paired with the regulatory stagnation from the Supreme Court decision, set the stage for the speculative future I envisioned. The urgency of this issue really hit home for me.
Speaker 1: 5:23
Yeah, no, I think it’s, you know, something where we might get really excited about it and all the possibilities of technology, but we have to think about what are the boundaries and what’s the framework and what is the you know ethical way to consider doing some of these things. You did a really great job of blending all of that together, you know, with law and ethics and science. It sounds like you’ve got a really bright future ahead of you. You said this is your first year heading into college. What are you studying and what interests you academically?
Speaker 2: 6:02
Yeah, so you’re absolutely right. It’s my first year going into college and I’m entering the guaranteed admission BSMD program at Virginia Commonwealth University, and I’ll be majoring in bioinformatics, so my focus is on combining computer science and molecular biology to study gene expression and disease modeling. I’m also quite passionate about pursuing an MD-PhD or an MD-JD, or maybe even all three degrees, and the idea is to bridge that gap between medicine and law and shape policies in ways that benefit both patients and the healthcare system. I believe that understanding both the technical aspects of medicine and the legal frameworks that surround it and govern it would let me advocate better for healthcare access and innovation. On this note, I’m also studying public health and Spanish to ensure that I can communicate effectively with diverse patient populations and advocate for the systemic change.
Speaker 1: 6:58
That’s amazing. That is just so fantastic, and I know without a doubt you can get all three of those degrees for sure. Where do you see yourself in the future Like post-graduation? What kind of impact are you hoping to make?
Speaker 2: 7:12
Yeah, yeah. In the future, I see myself working at this niche intersection of science, healthcare and policy, where I can combine cutting-edge research with real-world patient care, and my goal is to make sure that scientific breakthroughs are accessible to everyone, not just in the lab, but especially to underserved communities. I want to help make sure that the advancements that we make in medicine are shared equitably so that everyone, regardless of their background or resources, can benefit from them.
Speaker 1: 7:45
That’s amazing. That’s very touching, that’s fantastic. Well, we can’t wait to see what you accomplish and, once again, congratulations. Thanks for joining me today to kind of dive in deeper to your submission topic and to our viewers. If you’re a student that’s passionate about making a difference in law, regulation or public service, like Sokka here, visit Bertolino LLP’s website for more information on how to apply for next year’s Bertolino Impact in Government Scholarship. You can also check out Socket’s submission video that’s going to be linked below, get details on Know your Regulator and more. Thanks for tuning in and, as always, stay inspired and continue engaging with your regulatory agency. Know your Regulator the podcast that inspires you to engage.