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Team:TUDelft/Ethics
From 2009.igem.org
Engineering Biology
Introduction
Since the marriage between technologies in molecular and cellular biology together with genetics and proteomics gave life to a new phenomenon called synthetic biology, a lot of ethical questions were raised. Although the definition of synthetic biology is not yet clear and future implications are yet uncertain, research in the field of synthetic biology is at its peak. Different articles claim that synthetic biology is the answer to curing cancer and the production of bio-fuel, and several leading universities assembled specific departments for this field of research. An OpenWetware created by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, gives free access to a large registry of BioBricks: basic “ready to use” biological machinery components. The most important resource for these BioBricks comes from the yearly iGEM (international genetically engineered machine) competition, in which teams of students can compete on building the best microorganism machine by combining, describing, implementing and/or designing these biological standardized parts.
There is a lot of literature on ethical issues in synthetic biology. The ethical concerns mainly address "physical harms" and concerns gained by researchers "closest to action" in synthetic biology in general, including:
- Bio-safety (Regulations for working in synthetic biology)
- Bio-security (Consequences of synthetic biology, e.g. bio-terrorism)
- Intelectual property rights (conflict of interest and who owns what?)
- Transparency (open source, availability)
Issues that are at least as important but unfortunately less frequently discussed in literature are concerns about:
- Communication (towards public and media)
- Naturalness (or artificialness)
- Attitude
- Reductionism
A qualitative and quantitative analysis on how the opinions of researchers shape the technology known as 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 that should display their general opinion on ethical concerns in synthetic biology.
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