Michael “Buz” Waitzkin is the Deputy Director of Science & Society and Senior Lecturing Fellow at Duke University. For the past fifteen years, he has taught at Duke and been a frequent lecturer at other universities on issues of science law, policy, ethics and politics, with a focus on developing biomedical technologies.

He is the co-founder and chief strategy officer of Genomeon LLC, a start-up company developing and commercializing a genomic diagnostic technology, based on what others have discarded as “junk DNA”. He practiced law in the District of Columbia for 35 years, where he handled complex commercial and criminal cases in federal and state trial and appellate courts throughout the country. He has extensive experience in advising the biomedical research community on issues relating to legal and regulatory strategy and ethics. He served as Special Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel’s Office.

He attended the University of Virginia (BA 1971; Phi Beta Kappa, Echols Scholar), Stanford Law School (JD 1974) and Yale Law School (LLM 1975, Commonwealth Fellow in Law, Science and Medicine).

Press releases for Waitzkin’s appointment to Science & Society:

• Duke Today
• Science & Society