A day after a critical patent ruling on the gene-editing technology called CRISPR, researchers gathered at the 2017 AAAS Annual Meeting to discuss the technology’s future ethical and regulatory concerns surrounding its broader use.

The complex connections between genes, environment, and society will be the focus of the AAAS Caribbean Division’s annual conference, which convenes on 1 October on the University of Puerto Rico’s Mayagüez campus.

The 2011 conference is dedicated to Juan Carlos Martínez Cruzado, a researcher in the biology department at UPR-Mayagüez and a pioneer in mitochondrial DNA studies that link Puerto Rico’s original indigenous population to its current population. Cruzado will deliver the conference’s plenary lecture on indigenous genetic heredity in Puerto Rico.

Officials at AAAS, the world’s largest general science society, said they are “encouraged and optimistic” about legislation that would help prohibit the misuse of genetic information, if it is approved by the U.S. Senate on Tuesday, 14 October.