Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/Human practice/ethics

Synthetic Biology ethics

Synthetic biology, a novel advancement in science, is a popular study these days. It opens the door for scientists to create their ideas and put them into practice. However, some people are concerned about the ethical issues of it, namely biosafety, environmental damages, biosecurity and intellectual property rights. In the followings, light will be shed on these aspects and solutions.

With respect to the biosafety issue, it may be difficult to identify agents of concern. It is because synthetic biology involves the creation of lots of novel organisms in which it is challenging to classify them with regards to pathogeny. This is because of the lack of prior experience, difficulties in identifying sequences with pathogenic properties as well as the unsuitable use of methods or practice. ¹

Other than that, the leakage of “bio-product” may threaten our health and nature. Upon the creation of new organisms without in-depth understanding, it brings loads of uncertainties in terms of the control means and pathogenic possibility. Once they are leaked, it may result from the undesirable crossbreeding among offsprings themselves, or worse with other natural organisms which could seriously wreak havoc on the human health or even nature. One scenario is like that, infectious disease may be transmitted from laboratory workers to their family members, and to the whole community through uncontrollable airborne transmission.² There have been such documented cases of virus leakage from laboratories. For example, the leakage of smallpox poxvirus in Birmingham laboratory in United Kingdom in 1978, ³ SARS virus in Singapore and in China in 2003 and 2004 respectively¹, which controversially draw people’s attention on the biosafety of synthetic biology.

Other than biosafety problems, environmental damage is also one of the concerns. With the requirement of the resources for developing biomass of synthetic biology, it would be exploiting our ecosystem like lands and other natural resources. For example, large pieces of land were used to the bio-fuel development due to land limitation, which puts intense pressure on land that potentially affect the food yield, communities and the current ecosystem.²

Biosecurity is also one of the concerns of the synthetic biology. Given an understanding that some products are easily synthesized and lethal, it leads to the easy acquisition of the virulent strains for bioterrorism as weapons for detrimental purposes. For example in 2002, poliovirus was easily synthesized with an estimated cost of USD 7500 in a university laboratory setting.¹

Asides from that, intellectual property rights is also one of the problems. It is because synthetic biology involves originalities with a number of new products and techniques invented. This may lead to the copyright problem and dilemma between openness of resources and patent.

Regulations and policies can help solving these problems. By regulating DNA synthesis through encouraging the companies which synthesize genes to report the questionable DNA orders, this is effective in regulating the ethical issues and is currently in practice in United States and France. Other than that, building an up-to-date database that shows the sequences of genes and experiments which are at risk can also get to the root of the problems.¹

To deal with the issue of intellectual property rights, improving the intellectual property system to a sound and effective system is an integral part such that the design rights are protected and the “openness of resources” of synthetic biology can be attained at the same time.

Enhancing the international cooperation in regulating and governing synthetic biology is an effective way to cope with biosafety and biosecurity problems. Different countries can exchange their resources and data, communicate to establish measures to wrestle with the existing concerns due to synthetic biology regardless of the difficulties. For example, human genome project paves the path for the success of countries collaboration in solving problems.¹

In the social aspects, a lot of steps can be taken to deal with the synthetic biology issue. First, creating platforms for the public to discuss about it is an efficient way to collect different opinions from people from all walks of life. Since the technology of synthetic biology is closely related to the life of the public, they should have the right and obligation to engage in decision-making process. Not only does it help to collect more diverse ideas, it can also allow the public to know more about the safety and security problems with regards to synthetic biology.

Another social aspect that we can take action is through education. Taking iGEM competition as an example, it provides opportunities for undergraduate and high school students to learn and practice synthetic biology in a safe environment. Other than competition, some universities do provide courses regarding to biosafety and biosecurity ¹.

Although synthetic biology brings a lot of benefits to our society and the world, there are also potential ethical problems that we need to focus on. As a result, it is part and parcel which we have to delve into it in order to carve out a better future with the development of the synthetic biology.

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References:

1.     OECD, Royal Society (2010), “Symposium onOpportunities and Challenges in the Emerging Field of Synthetic Biology –Synthesis Report”.

2.     Presidential Committee for the Study ofBioethical Issues: New directions: the ethics of synthetic biology and emergingtechnologies. 2010 [http://www.bioethics.gov/news/].

3.     http://www.bmj.com/content/325/7377/1371/reply