Reductionism in Synthetic Biology, an ethical issue

The survey on reductionism in synthetic biology can be found here: [http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dElEZjI4Vk0wWmxHTWoycG03b2RrQ3c6MA.. Survey]. Feel free to fill it in, your contribution is very welcome.

Approach

How do the public and the scientific community feel and think about life-related questions and the reductionism approach in biology? This is difficult and always has been difficult. But now that we are directing evolution and trying to artificially create life, we have come to a point at which we need to discuss these issues. We will never get a clear answer on philosophical questions such as, "what is life?", even the scientific community is much too homogeneous for that. Still, a discussion to raise awareness and make us think about these questions could help in the debate on whether researchers should pursue the controversial goals that are present in synthetic biology. Furthermore, communication to the general public should be much easier if an overview of the different believes and opinions within the scientific community are available.

A qualitative and quantitative analysis on the opinions of researchers on reductionism in synthetic biology, could be achieved by approaching many people in this particular field of science (mostly iGEM supervisors and participants). To pursue the quantitative analysis, I would like to invite as many iGEM teams as possible to complete a short questionnaire.

The survey on reductionism in synthetic biology can be found here: [http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dElEZjI4Vk0wWmxHTWoycG03b2RrQ3c6MA.. Survey].

Interesting links

Synthetic biology in general
[http://www.springerlink.com/content/q561r1113xk10750/ Pleiss, 2006]
[http://www.nature.com/nrg/journal/v6/n7/abs/nrg1637.html Benner, 2005]
[http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VRV-4GM45W4-2&_user=499885&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=978595215&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000024500&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=499885&md5=c6095815cab1e416590eb6f2018682ed McDaniel and Weiss, 2007]
[http://www.nature.com/msb/journal/v2/n1/full/msb4100073.html Andrianantoandro, 2006]
European Commission, 2005
[http://www.nature.com/doifinder/10.1038/embor.2009.76 Deplazes, 2009]

Ethics in synthetic biology
[http://www.is-journal.org/V02I01/2ISJLP053.pdf Gorman, 2006]
[http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/the-promise-and-perils-of-synthetic-biology Tucker, 2006]
[http://www.synbioproject.org/library/publications/archive/synbio3/ Parens, 2006]
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7067/full/438423a.html Church, 2005]
[http://www.nature.com/embor/journal/v10/n1/full/embor2008232.html Samuel, 2009]
[http://www.bbsrc.ac.uk/organisation/policies/reviews/scientific_areas/0806_synthetic_biology.pdf Balmer, 2008]
[http://www.mtzstiftung.de/sites/mtzstiftung.de/myzms/content/e162/e356/e1417/e1988/nbt0408-387.pdf Boldt, 2008]
[http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v27/n4/full/nbt0409-321.html Mitra, 2009]

Reductionism
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6919/full/421118a.html Benner, 2003]
[http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060095 Caplan, 2008]
[http://science-mag.aaas.org/cgi/content/summary/286/5447/2087 Cho, 1999]
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/playing-god-the-man-who-would-create-artificial-life-773859.html Conner, 2008]
[http://dsc.discovery.com/technology/my-take/synthetic-biology-caplan.html Caplan]
[http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_3_60/ai_62111884/ Clark, 2000]
[http://camtriplehelix.com/magazine/synthetic7.pdf Pace, 2009]
[http://www.nature.com/nbt/journal/v15/n13/abs/nbt1297-1322.html Short, 1997]
[http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1299179 Regenmortel, 2004]
[http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/ArticleLinking.asp?JournalCode=MB&Year=2009&ManuscriptID=b901484e&Iss=7 Agapakis, 2009]
[http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Publications/BriefingBook/Default.aspx The hasting centre, 2008]
[http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=2872712 Calvert, 2008]
[http://genomebiology.com/content/2/2/COMMENT2002.1 Peterson, 2001]
[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v420/n6914/full/420350b.html Check, 2002]
[http://www.scribd.com/doc/24588/Zen-and-the-Art-of-Creating-Life Ray, 1993]