Team:RHIT/Ethics

• 
• 
  HOME
• 
  TEAM
  • Team Members
  • Attributions
  • Official Team Profile
• 
  PROJECT
  • Wetlab
  • Human Practices
  • Sustainability
• 
  NOTEBOOK
  • Protocols
  • Journal
  • Parts
  • References
• 
  SAFETY
• 

What is synthetic biology?

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 create 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.

How new is synthetic biology?

Being that synthetic biology has just recently been gaining more attention among 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.

Synthetic biology, good or bad?

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 potential 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.

Types of Potential Physical Harms	Definition	Example
Known	These are potential physical harms that people realize are associated with synthetic biology.	If someone synthetically engineered a small pox virus and released in on a population of people
Unknown	These are potential physical harms that people can conceptualize but lack the knowledge to fully understand.	Not knowing how all synthetically engineered bacteria will mutate
Unknown Unknown	These are potential physical harms that, given the human race's current state of knowledge, cannot be understood.	Being that humans cannot even conceptualize these potential physical harms, there are no examples

Given all of the different types of potential physical harms, one may ask how these harms should be handled. Currently there are two fronts that an individual can find themselves in when trying to find a solution to these potential physical harms; some individuals favor the pro-actionary approach, while others favor the pre-cautionary approach.

A pro-actionary view centers around the belief that emerging science and technology, such as synthetic biology, should be considered safe, economically desirable, and intrinsically good unless and until it is shown to be otherwise. This means that those who want to slow down or stop research must provide proof as to why it is harmful. The pro-actionary viewpoint also holds the ideology that researchers and business people should have the freedom to pursue their work, economic growth, competitiveness, human health, and well-being. Therefore, anything that would be hindering this would be a restriction of their freedom. One of the fears within the pro-actionary viewpoint is that public skepticism could hinder the uptake of consumer products and ultimately slow down the scientific advancement just as it did with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Europe. In addition, one of the beliefs within the pro-actionary viewpoint is that funding restrictions could hinder countries competitiveness in the global scientific community similar to how funding restrictions on embryonic stem cell research in America hindered their competitiveness. For these reasons the pro-actionary viewpoint is centered on self-regulation by the scientists involved in synthetic biology, as well as an increase in public engagement. The shining example of self-regulation that people who hold a pro-actionary viewpoint usually refer to is the 1975 Asilomar conference on recombinant DNA (rDNA). At this conference scientists closest to the research met and created a safety guideline for all future rDNA research. This conference ultimately led to the 1976 NIH guidelines for research involving rDNA molecules. However, there are still concerns if self-regulation is the best approach. Public engagement, in terms of a pro-actionary viewpoint, is seen as a need to educate the public more about synthetic biology. This way the public is better informed and more supportive of synthetic biology research.

The pre-cautionary view is centered on the idea that the burden of proof lies on those who migth put the environment or public safety at risk, or those who might disrupt ways of living or systems of meaning. This type of viewpoint usually leads to more governance and public engagement and a slower pace of research and development. For example, in the nanotechnology fields the question of how government and industry can increase public trust around emerging technologies was answered by a recommendation that there be more transparency and disclosure by the industry and government, pre-market testing before commercial products are introduced and more independent third party assessments of risks and benefits. The pre-cautionary view supports the belief that rules like these will protect the environment from humans' well-intended mistakes, and safeguard the public from the ill intentions of terrorists. To fully understand the pre-cautionary view, one must understand that public engagement in this sense means allowing the citizens to offer an upstream critique of science and technology. This means that the public will actually be more involved in the development of these types of technologies and not just reassured in them so that they continue to consume the products created by these emerging technologies. This leads to one of the biggest differences that is usually but not always seen between the pre-cautionary view and the pro-actionary view which is that pre-cautionary people believe that science and technology need to serve the interests of all people and mot just the interest of the scientists, investors, or big business.

next comes the debate of nonphysical harms which consists of dealing with what is morally right and wrong. This debate receives less attention and is often not even addressed. This usually includes the concepts of fairness, equality, progress, and the appropriate relationship of humans to themselves and the natural world. Common issues that arise with nonphysical harms usually involve things such as patent law rights with emerging technologies, genetic discrimination, and even the "playing God" argument. The playing God argument in the context of synthetic biology states that synthetic biologists are over stepping their role in life by creating novel forms of life. This type of argument leads to how one should answer the question of what a human's natural role in life is. Supporters of the pro-actionary view would argue that the relationship between humans and the natural world is as an artist to their clay. For this reason they argue that if humans wouldn't have taken this view, people would lack antibiotics, plentiful food, and clean drinking water. Others, however, argue that if humans begin to create lower forms of life and think of them as artifacts they may weaken society's respect for higher forms of life. Another issue involves the patenting and commercialization of synthetic biology; who should control and have access to inventions and for whose gain? One could argue that emerging technologies create an unfair economical advantage for certain sectors of the population. For this reason many believe that regulation and oversight is key. Currently in America, the National Bioethics Advisory Council and the President;s Council on Bioethics, both of which handle these nonphysical harms, only answer these question in an advisory manner. There has been some progress involving nonphysical harms in America, however. For example, there are currently laws like the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act, which protects Americans from being discriminated against based on their genetic information by health insurance companies and employers. With such little regulation, however, it is very hard for scientists and business people to know how to answer the questions derived from these nonphysical harms. That is why Laurie Zoloth states that scientists and business people should invoke "the ELSI liturgy" of "public discourse, open access, transparency, training, public education, collaboration, international codes, oversight, be careful, weapons are generally evil, and excessive profits are unfair" when trying to answer the questions dealing with nonphysical harms. Because most American adopt different moral frameworks, however, it is very hard to come to a consensus and potential nonphysical harms.

Conclusion

Synthetic biology is a repidly emerging field that shows great promise for the future. However, it does present many potential physical and nonphysical harms. Even so, these potential harms are not always unique to synthetic biology, and have been seen in other emerging technologies such as genetics, neuroscience, stem cell research, and nanotechnology. In this debate, people with a pro-actionary approach on synthetic biology argue that there should be no interference with the development of emerging technologies unless there is a very good cause to suspect that it will bring about serious physical harm; if there is interference it should be minimal self-regulation rather than formal federal regulation. People holding a pro-actionary approach to synthetic biology also wish to have public engagement in the form of education the people about the risks and benefits of these new emerging technologies so that members of the public can be informed consumers. People with a pre-cautionary view on synthetic biology believe that one should be prepared to interfere with the development of emerging technologies if there is good cause to suspect that they will bring about physical harm. The pre-cautionary view advocates regulation, external oversight and public engagement that involves the public actually shaping the development of the emerging technologies. This type of control is currently being employed and studied around nanotechnology in America.

With regard to non-physical harms, few have received attention, while others have been pushed aside of ignored. While topics about patents slowing down research and voluntary open-source have been discussed and have been gaining traction, concerns such as humans' roles in nature and the ethics behind the creation of new kinds of life have gained little attention or received no answers, because of the nature of these questions and our inability to come to a consensus on these topics. This does not mean, however, that we should not spend time and put forth effort to try to answer these questions. When we listen carefully and respectfully to the concerns of others, we live up to a widely shared moral commitment to respect one another. In the end, one can see how difficult and complex a lot of the questions synthetic biology has created are. However, this does not mean that synthetic biology is good or bad. It just means the people need to spend more time thinking about and discussing the issues at hand.

References

• Oliver Morton, "Life, Reinvented," Wired 13, no. 1 (2005): 1-6.
• Parens, Erik, Josephine Johnston, and Jacob Moses. "Ethical Issues in Synthetic Biology." (n.d.): n. pag. Synbioproject.org Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, June 2009. Web. July 2014.

Retrieved from "http://2014.igem.org/Team:RHIT/Ethics"