Team:RHIT/Ethics

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Synthetic biology is a hot topic in the public domain as well as the scientific community. Before one can venture into the debate of synthetic biology and tackle the ethical, political, and economic concerns that continue to arise from the advancement of synthetic biology, one must first understand what synthetic biology is, as well as the potential applications for synthetic biology. Synthetic biology is commonly defined as taking biology and turning it into more of an engineering practice. There are currently four synthetic biology pioneers that are well-known. Each approaches synthetic biology from a different angle and thus adds a different perspective to the synthetic biology debate. The first pioneer is Drew Endy, whose biobrick movement is currently being progressed by the International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) Foundation; the second is Craig Venter, who is in search of the minimal genome; the third is George Church, who is working on creating the protocell, or a collection of lipids proposed to be a stepping-stone to the origin of life; finally, there is Jay Keasling from the University of California, Berkeley, who is working on engineering bacteria to produce medicines and other products.

Drew Endy views synthetic biology as biology with a significant engineering component added. He plans to do this by creating an open source of DNA based parts, or "biobricks" to engineer the biological machines and devices of the future. Currently the iGEM competition, which is a competition for teams of undergraduate and graduate students, is the main source of these biobricks. Each team spends ten weeks in the summer designing and completing a project that will either create new parts or utilize previously submitted parts to build novel synthetic biological systems to perform a variety of tasks. One requirement of the competition is that teams submit any new parts to the iGEM registry, which is all open source. The systems created from these parts can be anything from biological systems that detect and report when meat has spoiled to a way to get yeast and E. coli to communicate with each other. Endy believes that these biobricks will be as important for the 20^th century as bolts and screws were for the 19^th century. Craig Venter's approach to synthetic biology, however, is to find the minimal genome. The idea behind the minimal genome is that not all genes in a cell are necessary for the cell's survival, and that the cell's genome can be reduced to only contain the portion of the genome that is essential to the cell. Venter hopes that by finding the minimal genome, future synthetic biologists will have a chasse which they can use to build their new systems. Currently Venter's research is funded by the Department of Energy, National Institutes of Health, and other major foundations. George Church's research focuses on creating the protocell. A protocell is a self-organized, endogenously ordered, spherical collection of lipids proposed as a stepping-stone to the origin of life. Once created, the protocell, in conjunction with the minimal genome, could be used to house "mini factories" to produce drugs and other chemicals. Jay Keasling's work, however, shows a closer resemblance to genetic engineering, and it was produced the most results. Keasling is currently working on driving a bacteria he engineered to produce the anti-malarial drug Artemisinin to a manufacturing scale. This drug is derived from the sweet wormwood plant, and is currently very expensive to manufacture. Keasling's bacteria could produce more of the drug at a cheaper price, and in a more environmentally friendly way. Keasling's research is a shining example of how synthetic biology can be used to create a safe and effective way to industrialize in the 21^st century.

Being that synthetic biology has just recently been gaining more attention amond the public, there is a common belief that synthetic biology is a newly emerging technology and field. However, many argue that synthetic biology has been around for at least 40 years in biotechnology and even millenia in human agriculture. Evidence of synthetic biology's existence before the current decade includes recombinant DNA (rDNA) technology which came about in the 70s. Such advances are what have allowed for the production of products such as biosynthetic insulin. It can be argued that recently the field of synthetic biology has been rapidly expanding.For instance, commercial gene-synthesis companies are currently able to manufacture virtually any DNA sequence. One could argue, however, that the new ethical issues that arise from the growth of synthetic biology are not in themselves unique. For example, one could ask how synthetic biology is different from genetic engineering or nanotechnology. As mentioned earlier, the work of Jay Keasling is considered by most to be a form of genetic engineering and nanotechnology refers to the scale at which a heterogeneous set of activities takes place. Therefore, it can be said that synthetic biology is just a subset of nanotechnology and an elaboration of or broader use for genetic engineering. For these reasons, many ethicists believe that synthetic biology should be viewed as an emerging technology that is converging with many other current technologies; thus time, money, and resources can be saved by realizing that the basic ethical questions within these fields are very similar.

Before one even gets into the ethical debate of synthetic biology, it is important to recognize that no one comes to any debate form reason alone. Everyone brings residues from multiple intellectual traditions to each decision that is made. It also needs to be understood that even though most people are not extensively trained with an ethical background from reasoning through morality and moral principles, they still can possess different perspectives on ethical questions. For these reasons, these concepts must be remembered while working through the ethical debate of synthetic biology.

There are great potential benefits with synthetic biology, Many argue that synthetic biology harbors the technology of the future because it has the potential to do many things, such as creating new energy sources, new biodegradable plastics, new tools to clean up the environment, and new ways of manufacturing medicines. More specifically, synthetic biology has many potential applications in green industrialization including advancement of biofuels, carbon sequestration, oil spill remediation, and arsenic-sensing bacteria. many believe that to advance our knowledge and understanding as a species, humans need to pursue future research in synthetic biology. As Richard Feynman stated, "What I cannot create I do not understand" (Morton, p.3). To put it simply, by engineering and reengineering living organisms, people may be able to gain a greater understanding of how the biological world works in areas that current scientific techniques cannot examine. In short, synthetic biology shows great promise for benefiting and advancing current technology and understanding the world.

Though synthetic biology shows great promise, there are still potention harms associated with the emerging field. Synthetic biology can have the potential to create physical harms and nonphysical harms (Parens, p.15-16). Examples of physical harms would include bioterrorism or mutated organisms escaping from the lab and into the wild; nonphysical harms would be harms associated with patent laws or with humans having the ability to create novel forms of life.

Potential physical harms will be addressed first, because they are more heatedly discussed among the public and get more attention. See the table of potential physical harms below.