2025 Annual Conference: Law, Health Care, and the Aging Brain and Body

WHEN:
9 A.M.–5 P.M.
WHERE:

Livestream

Conference Description

The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School is pleased to announce our 2025 annual conference: “Law, Health Care, and the Aging Brain and Body.” This year’s conference is organized by the Petrie-Flom Center in collaboration with Nina A. Kohn, the David M. Levy Professor of Law at Syracuse University College of Law and the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law with the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy at Yale Law School and Francis X. Shen, Professor of Law, Solly Robbins Distinguished Research Fellow, and Faculty Member in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience at the University of Minnesota.

As people around the world live longer, existing systems for supporting older adults are facing increased stress. Social safety net programs face growing costs, family caregivers find themselves simultaneously caring for multiple generations, and health care systems face patients with increased complexity. Health care systems and political structures will need to adapt to this new reality. Current legal, policy, and regulatory approaches seem poorly matched to address these emerging issues.   

Fortunately, new scientific understanding of the aging brain and body can guide lawmakers, health care professionals, and families as they respond to the challenges and opportunities posed by increased longevity.   

This conference calls on participants to imagine how law, public policy, and health care entities can create systems that promote the well-being of older adults and their families in a world of enhanced longevity, and to suggest what lessons can be drawn from emerging scientific understandings of the aging brain and body.

Livestream

The conference panels will be livestreamed for the general public on our website. Please register to receive reminders and the link to the livestream.

Agenda

Opening Remarks

I. Glenn Cohen, Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School

Nina Kohn, David M. Levy Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law; Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law, Solomon Center for Health Law & Politics

Francis X. Shen, Professor of Law, University of Minnesota; Member, Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics; Founding Director, Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience & Society; Former Petrie-Flom Senior Fellow, Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience

Susannah Baruch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics

Decision-Making, Agency, and Capacity 

Break 

Payment, Delivery, and Emerging Issues in Clinical Care 

Biological age: Exploring Ethical and Legal Issues Linked to its use in the Clinical Context

Addressing the Challenges of Cognitive Decline in the Physician Workforce

Medicare’s Reboot in Middle Age

Modernizing Medicare for Extended Healthspans

“Must Be This Old to Enter”: Fairness and Benefit Problems with Elder-Targeted Health Care

Lunch

Discrimination, Protection, and Paternalism

Break

Technology and Commercialization in Aging

Closing remarks

I. Glenn Cohen, Petrie-Flom Center Faculty Director, James A. Attwood and Leslie Williams Professor of Law, and Deputy Dean, Harvard Law School

Nina Kohn, David M. Levy Prof. of Law, Syracuse University College of Law; Distinguished Scholar in Elder Law, Solomon Center for Health Law & Politics

Francis X. Shen, Professor of Law at University of Minnesota; Member of the Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics; Founding Director of the Dana Foundation Career Network in Neuroscience & Society; Former Petrie-Flom Senior Fellow of Project on Law and Applied Neuroscience

Susannah Baruch, Executive Director, Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics

Sponsored by the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School with support from the Oswald DeN. Cammann Fund at Harvard University.