Survey on synthetic biology

We also wanted to figure out what the public expects synthetic biology to contribute to society and in those areas that synthetic biology is applied in, where they wish the most for progress. Among these areas are medicine, renewable energy, environment, and nutrition. To those who were not familiar with the term “synthetic biology” we gave a short introduction, of course without influencing their opinion. The question was: “In which of the areas where synthetic biology is applied do you wish for progress?” Apparently most people are interested in the use of synthetic biology for medicinal or environmental purposes, whereas less wanted synthetic biology to solve problems concerning renewable energy and the least wanted synthetic biology to interfere in nutritional issues. The results for nutrition and renewable energy were somewhat expected - genetically modified food is a hotly debated topic in Germany and renewable energy may be a somewhat intangible term, especially as the connection to synthetic biology is probably not as obvious as for the other areas.
On the other hand, we were quite surprised to find that people obviously cared about the environment as much as about medicinal issues. However, it would sure be interesting to see whether the age group has an influence on what the respective persons chose. Therefore, we also asked for the persons’ ages and got the following results. Especially for environment and medicine it is interesting to see that persons younger than 40 years and persons of 40 years or older seem to form two distinct groups with equally distinct opinions. While the younger ones decided for environment more often, the opposite is the case for the older ones who are more interested in the use of synthetic biology for medicine. Although these differences might not be significant one can still assume that the age influences a person’s priorities. Preservation is a relatively new issue which might explain that younger ones seem to be more interested in it. This is probably not to the same degree the case for older people who instead wish for progress in more conventional areas like medicine, which also have a more direct influence on humans.
In general, however, there is a discrepancy of opinions. On the one hand, many people want to preserve the environment, but on the other hand, only few would be willing to change their diets in order to achieve this.

Public Discussions

Public discussions and presentations offer a high degree of information exchange, and therefore we tried to present our project in this manner whenever possible. For example, we gave a presentation to students of biological disciplines during a regular lecture. This possibility was given to us by Professor Dr Stefan Dübel who is the head of the Institute for Biochemistry, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics at our university and, most notably, our sponsor and supporter. During a series of discussions at our university’s auditorium, we joined two of them which were related to synthetic biology and livestock farming. We got alternative views on synthetic biology and became aware of some important questions which might come along with it: Might genetically modified organisms be in danger of getting in the wrong hands, for example of biohackers? Is conventional breeding already synthetic biology? How can we control the spread of genetically modified organisms? The discussion on livestock farming, moreover, made us realize the importance of the animals’ well-being which we planned to take into consideration for our project. Thus, we found that in order to broaden one’s horizon it is not only important to give talks oneself but also to attend talks by others, this way providing one with different views and new impulses.

Media

Besides getting in contact with people by the above-mentioned means we also kept the public up to date via social media. We mainly used our Facebook page to inform our followers about our progress in the lab, events like the European Researchers’ Night or several iGEM meetups we attended, and sometimes just to keep them entertained with little games or a specially designed E. coli soccer World Cup oracle.

On our Facebook page, the number of “Likes” rose to about 500 during the work on our project, which we attribute to different factors. Firstly, to general appreciation of working in a self-organized team, which is one of the main ideas behind iGEM, and secondly to a rising interest in questions concerning synthetic biology. Therefore, Facebook was an important means for us to convey the importance of our discipline to those who are generally not very familiar with such topics.
Similar to Facebook, we also used our Twitter account to keep our followers up to date. Although we used both media to communicate we rather switched to Twitter when we wanted to post live from certain events like, for example, public discussions. Thus, we could spread the views expressed there as soon as we had heard them ourselves.

In order to raise public awareness, we regularly issued press releases. In those reports we informed people about our project idea and how we wanted to implement it. Moreover, we told them about important events in which we were about to take part and milestones we reached.

Ethics

"Climate change is fundamentally an ethical issue.” [1]

As this quote suggests, talking about a solution to climate change inevitably means taking many other areas into account, too. These issues span a wide range from economy to livestock farming and animal welfare. Some of them shall be addressed here. Livestock farming is one of the most important sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions [2]. Thus, one could conclude that if people just stopped eating meat or drinking milk a big step towards a better climate could be done. Obviously things are not that simple, though. On the one hand, although there is a rise of interest in vegan diets [3] and of public concern over the intensification of livestock production [4,5] there is still a big demand for the respective products, an indication of which is given by one of our surveys. On the other hand, it may be too shortsighted to reduce certain kinds of food solely to the greenhouse gas emissions caused during their production. In a study by Smedman and colleagues [6] the nutrient content of various beverages was expressed in relation to their climate impact. The highest Nutrient Density to Climate Impact (NDCI) index was ascribed to milk because, despite its production being linked to a large amount of GHG emissions, it contains lots of nutrients, which, according to the study, justifies the negative side effects in a way. Such deliberations may be controversial, but they show that a simple change of food consumption patterns is probably not always the most sensible choice [6], irrespective of the willingness. Accordingly, if vegetarian diets are portrayed as superior to non-vegetarian diets one should also consider that at the same time a vegetarian diet might have a lower nutritional value [7].

Theoretical constructs like the NDCI index may be helpful when considering whether or not to keep eating meat or drinking milk. They do not, however, stop greenhouse gases like methane from being emitted and harming the Earth’s climate. Yet, it seems necessary to maintain production standards for the time being because, although ethical concerns play an important role in the consumers’ minds [4], it will still take many years until thoroughly sustainable animal production systems can be established. The process of rethinking when it comes to animal products cannot be done from one day to the other. There is no use in forcing people to believe in something of which they are not (yet) convinced, not to mention the economical consequences that would follow from a rapid, forced decrease of livestock production.

Hence, until society and economy are ready to significantly reduce livestock farming and thus greenhouse gas emissions, approaches are needed by which the emissions can be reduced while in other respects maintaining the status quo for the time being. In the development of such approaches science must play a pivotal role. The key characteristics of science, however – being rational and objective and value-free – also make some kind of control necessary for the consideration of ethical concerns [7]. This necessity stems from the fact that there is a large degree of reservation in the public towards the involvement of scientists in the food chain, which is likely due to several cases of unethical behavior on the scientists’ part. There is a need for scientists to broaden their thinking. Highly specialized scientists are necessary, but they must be open to society and not forget about possible bad consequences that might result from their research [4].

This implies that although production intensity, as aforementioned, might have to be maintained for the time being this does not relieve anyone from the duty of keeping the animals’ welfare in mind. Although farm animals are often simply seen as resources, they are still sentient beings towards whose well-being humans have a moral responsibility. This responsibility should be grounded on the humans’ respect for the intrinsic value of life [5,8]. In this context, the British Farm Animal Welfare Council has devised the so-called Five Freedoms providing a guideline as to how farm animals should be treated. These Five Freedoms, in the most current form, are 1) the freedom from hunger and thirst, 2) the freedom from discomfort, 3) the freedom from pain, injury and disease, 4) the freedom to express normal behaviour, and 5) the freedom from fear and distress [9]. These are thought to pose a checklist for any husbandry system [8]. It is quite obvious, though, that most husbandry systems cannot live up to all of the Five Freedoms, and it is equally obvious why this is the case. One might argue that farmers and consumers, like farm animals, are also sentient beings, some of whom cannot afford the high-welfare food which would be produced if the Five Freedoms were properly considered [8]. Therefore, the well-being of animals in livestock is closely linked to economic factors. Yet, this cannot be taken as an excuse for a continuation of mistreating animal rights. The challenge here is to design production systems which can live up to several different types of demand: of humans not wanting to spend a fortune on their nutrition, of those interested in ethical questions concerning animal welfare, of the animals themselves which have to be properly treated, of the economy which has to be kept running, and of course of the climate which has to be preserved. How does our methane-metabolizing E. cowli do in this unsolved equation? It is supposed to be administered to cows in the form of small alginate beads in which the bacteria shall be encapsulated. Would this harm the animal? We do not think it would. We would even go as far as to say that our approach would harm the animal less than some past approaches do. Most of them have in common that they either target the methanogenic bacteria of the rumen or other organisms associated with them, resulting in a decreased rate of methanogenesis [10]. However, methanogenesis is important in this complex ecosystem because it removes hydrogen which would otherwise inhibit certain microorganisms [11]. In contrast, what we are planning to do would not influence methanogenesis itself and thus the microbial community in the animal’s digestive tract. Therefore, E. cowli does not restrict any of the Five Freedoms.

Nevertheless, some people might be skeptical about feeding live bacteria to cows whose milk they are supposed to drink and whose meat they are supposed to eat. So-called direct-fed microbials are not a new development, though, and have already been used to influence the microorganisms of the rumen [12]. Therefore, choosing this approach was actually not as controversial a decision as it might seem at first. Besides, humans even use probiotics on themselves. More problematic to legitimate might be our use of a genetically modified organism. Its sole modification, however, is its ability to degrade methane so no dangers come along with it. If E. cowli should unexpectedly leave the rumen a proposed kill switch shall make sure that it does not proliferate any further. Apart from these issues, our methane-degrading bacterium would allow for the maintenance of high production standards while simultaneously rendering them more climate-friendly.

References

1. Gardiner SM (2004) Ethics and Global Climate Change. Ethics 114:555-600
2. Siegford JM, Powers W, Grimes-Casey HG (2008) Environmental Aspects of Ethical Animal Production. Poult Sci 87:380-6
3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/02/interest-in-vegan-diets-on-the-rise_n_3003221.html (05.10.2014)
4. Hodges J (2003) Livestock, ethics, and the quality of life. J Anim Sci 81:2887-94
5. Croney CC, Anthony R (2011) Ruminating conscientiously: Scientific and socio-ethical challenges for US dairy production. J Dairy Sci 94:539-46
6. Smedman A, Lindmark-Månsson H, Drewnowski A, Modin Edman AK (2010) Nutrient density of beverages in relation to climate impact. Food Nutr Res 54:5170
7. Croney CC, Apley M, Capper JL, Mench JA, Priest S (2012) The ethical food movement: What does it mean for the role of science and scientists in current debates about animal agriculture? J Anim Sci 90:1570-82
8. Webster AJF (2001) Farm Animal Welfare: the Five Freedoms and the Free Market. Vet J 161:229-37
9. Farm Animal Welfare Council (2009) Farm Animal Welfare in Great Britain: Past, Present and Future
10. Hook SE, Wright ADG, McBride BW (2010) Methanogens: Methane Producers of the Rumen and Mitigation Strategies. Archaea 2010:ID 945785
11. Sharp R, Ziemer CJ, Stern MD (1998) Taxon-specific associations between protozoal and methanogen populations in the rumen and a model rumen system.
12. Jeynathan J, Martin C, Morgavi DP (2014) The use of direct-fed microbials for mitigation of ruminant methane emissions: a review. Animal 8:250-61