CNN brings together some of the brightest minds of our time in a landmark television event airing June 15, ‘ CNN FUTURE SUMMIT : OF MAN AND MACHINE'.  One of the team who cloned Dolly the sheep and a woman considered the world's first robot psychiatrist are just two of the panelists chosen to explore how developments in genetic engineering, stem cell research, robotics and cybernetics will dramatically reshape the human machine and how we interact in the years ahead with the robots that help run our world.

The first of four one-hour roundtable discussions, hosted by Michael Holmes from Singapore, is the centerpiece of CNN's global initiative designed to stimulate debate on technological advances shaping tomorrow's world. Through an extensive multimedia open forum at http:// cnn.com/futuresummit, viewers are encouraged to participate in the discussions through the website, offering their thoughts and insights on issues to be debated.

CNN International's Senior Vice President Rena Golden says, “ The world class caliber of our panelists for this first discussion is testament to the esteem in which CNN FUTURE SUMMIT is already held by both the scientific community and the general public . We are delighted that such an illustrious group has been chosen by the nominating committee to lead our global discussion and help form a vision of our future.”

South Korean roboticist Jun-ho Oh and HUBO will also make a special appearance at the filming of ‘ CNN FUTURE SUMMIT : OF MAN AND MACHINE' . HUBO is one of the world's most advanced humanoid robots, designed by Dr. Oh and The Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology. Unveiled in December 2004, HUBO can move, shake hands and even dance.

The panelists

	Alan Colman is the CEO and Chief Scientific Officer of ESI in Singapore and widely known for his work on cloning Dolly the Sheep in 1997. “ I think the cloning of Dolly led to a paradigm shift in our views of what adult stem cells could and couldn't do,” he says. Colman says the revolutionary advances in genetic and stem cell research will ultimately lead to “ people having longer lives and higher quality lives in their terminal years.”
	Billed as the world's first Robotic Psychiatrist, Joanne Pranksy has observed the development of robotics and serves as a consultant for organizations and companies around the world. “Autonomous, thinking robots living and coexisting with us on a daily basis will dramatically change our world,” Pransky says. That exponential rate of change in technology means that at today's rate “a hundred years of progress will be made in 25 years,” she adds, “and the 21st century will feel like 20,000 years of technical progress.“
	Daniela Cerqui is a cultural and social anthropologist at Switzerland 's University of Lausanne specializing in the convergence of society and technology. “All these technologies should not be understood as separate fields,” says Cerqui. “They are currently converging for improving humankind. We have to stand back and wonder what it means for a society if everyone is able to replace every failing elements in his or her organism…More fundamentally, radically modifying ourselves also means that we might evolve into a new species, defined as anything but human!”
	Jay Keasling is working to solve a problem facing millions of people around the world: genetically designing a new microbe to produce an inexpensive version of a life-saving drug. The Founding Director of the Synthetic Biology Department at the University of California at Berkeley, Keasling and his team are taking genes from three different species to produce Artemisinin, a key to fighting malaria. Artemisinin is found naturally in the wormwood tree, but extracting it is expensive and time consuming. The CDC estimates up to 2.7 million people around the world die every year from malaria. Keasling's solution could provide a cheap alternative source of the drug

For more information on CNN Future Summit , go to: http:// cnn.com/futuresummit

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