Team:Gothenburg/BTB/Ethics

Ethics in Synthetic biology

Synthetic biology is a branch of science where new genetic material is added to a living organism to give it a new feature. This only works because all life forms have the same genetic code and system to translate the code into proteins. For microorganism such as bacteria this process is fairly straight forward since it relies on bacteria natural ability to take up genetic material form its surrounding. This is usually referred to horizontal gene transfer and is an important evolutionary factor which is the cause of the rapid spread of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. For more complex organism this simple gene transfer is not possible since the cost of complexity is a loss in flexibility. But it is still possible and the most common way is again relies on natural mechanism, by using viruses as a vector. Viruses "live" by invading organism and inserting their DNA into the host hijacking its cellular machinery to make more viruses instead of its normal functions. Eight percent of the human genome is remnants of these viruses [1]. By replacing the genes responsible for making new viruses with others one can to genetically alter an organism. Therefore one could argue that we do not alter organism only the environment. Similar to what we have done to us as a species with the rise of civilisation and to domesticated animals and plants through breeding.

But unlike normal breeding synthetic biology have given rise to a new set of ethical questions. Only to the respect of higher organism not bacteria and other microorganism a value base highlighting the narcissistic nature of ethics and bioethics in particular. Because much of what is controversial is already been done and allowed without any ethical discussion. Insulin, penicillin, the malaria drug artemisinin funded by Bill and Melinda Gate, vaccines, gene therapy drugs, citric acid, lactic acid, amino acid and the enzymes in your detergent have all been produce with the help of synthetic biology unaffected by debate and to a large extent public knowledge. Epistemological the debate is not about what we can archive with life, it's about the limits of the human imagination to sympathize and empathize. This imagination apparently stops with unicellular organism, a consideration worth noting.

This transformation from breeding to synthetic biology have been a result of knowledge of biology on a smaller scale and thereby how to make it our self. An organism life and behaviour is no longer a product of nature but an active opportunity human can oppose to others. Which we are not the first to gain, the parasites called Toxoplasma gondii can make rats less afraid of cats to increase the chance the rat will be eaten and complete the parasite lifecycle [2]. There are a fungus infecting ants causing them climb trees were the fungus fruiting body erupts from the ants head where the height increases the distribution of the fungal spores [3]. But these traits have been a consequence of evolution not a conscious decision. The use of synthetic biology is not as a survival strategy but can be in the worst case for amusement. It allows us to become an actor not just for our evolution but for other species as well.

We can do almost anything to a unicellular organism when it is no longer seen as a question mark but as a complicated machine tweaked and modified at our leisure. More and more knowledge is gained about complex organism this change can occur to humans as well. The final end to our narcissistic romanticism will end and be replaced with a deep understanding and maybe with that our respect. Where cloned humans no longer have fully human parents appears with part of its genome originates from a machine, like the synthetic cell created at Greg Venter institute [5]. But how different is that from the virus DNA already present? Our idea of being fully human or for that matter a mammal has never been true. Is knowledge and directed intention the divider between natural and unnatural, ethical and non-ethical. Our picture of the world has always been wrong only now we know it. That knowledge cannot transform the worlds physical laws it can only present options and which options we peruse are hopefully beneficial ones. But as David Hume said there are a difference between what is and what ought to be. Here lies the responsibility and duty of science and scientist to be aware of the bubble that science can be. But how answer what ought to be can only happen in contact with society.

References

1. R. Belshaw et al., Long-term reinfection of the human genome by endogenous retroviruses, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2004; 101(14) p: 4894–4899.

2. M. Berdoy, J. P. Webster, and D. W. Macdonald. Fatal attraction in rats infected with Toxoplasma gondii, Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biological Sciences. 2000; 267(1452) p: 1591–1594.

3. M. B. Pontoppidan et. al. Graveyards on the Move: The Spatio-Temporal Distribution of Dead Ophiocordyceps-Infected Ants, Plos one. 2009; 4(3) p: 1-10.

4. D. G. Gibson et. al. Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome, Science. 2010; 329(5987) p: 52-56.