From 2011.igem.org

UNIVERSITY OF EAST ANGLIA-JOHN INNES CENTRE

Interview Nine

Interviewer:

''Do you know what synthetic biology is?''

Interviewee:

''I think that synthetic biology can mean many things to many people depending on their background, from the purest approach; making something that resembles a living organism out of abiotic components like assembling proteins, self-assembly proteins that have polarity for example, through to what you might call, metabolic engineering, extreme metabolic engineering. Modelling is obviously very important. I think it can be very broad. People have strong views; the experts in those areas have very strong views in some case about what synthetic biology is.''

Interviewer:

''How do you feel personally about synthetic biology?''

Interviewee:

''I think it’s a very interesting tool to trigger new ways of thinking, bringing people together with different backgrounds to take on challenges in different ways is very stimulating, and I’m sure at one point lots of useful things will come out of it. But at the minute, in my view it’s more of a vehicle for thinking and developing ideas and bringing new areas of science together.''

Interviewer:

''Has the media influenced your opinion at any point about it?''

Interviewee:

''No, i must admit i haven’t heard that much recently about synthetic biology in the media. I think Craig Venter talking about his synthetic bacteria I heard on the radio. Didn’t feel entirely comfortable with it. I think my own experiences with synthetic biology, I ended up in a sand pit in America with 30 people from different backgrounds spending 5 days...competing for funding...was the best way to find out people views and to find out what it could and could not do.''

Interviewer:

''Do you know what genetic modification is?''

Interviewee:

''Yes and again that is a term that is used perhaps in too much of a tailored way, the implication is that its genetic engineering as in, something what is being facilitated by humans though unnatural routes. But i would say that any form of genetic modification what can be nature or induced for example, by chemicals mutagens is still genetic modification. So golden promise barley which is organic has had a large amount of its genome knocked out by eradication.''

Interviewer:

''So how do you feel personally? Do you think genetic medication is beneficial? ''

Interviewee:

''Certainly, and i think there is too much polarity around technologies and if we have a problem solving based approach to things like we say we have a food security issue we have to feed alot more people and we need to be able to figure out quickly, we could do this through smart classical plant breeding, on some occasion we may need to introduce genes from perhaps oats into, for example wheat where you could normally cross them and the fastest way to do that would be through genetic engineering. And also you can accelerate plant breeding of very specific genes into species regardless of even if they are very close; it’s still a faster way of doing that, without the problem of dragging unwanted genes with them. ''

Interviewer:

''Has the media influenced your opinion of this in any way? ''

Interviewee:

''I think the media is looking for stories, i think in the past, in the beginning of applications of generic engineering to plants, perhaps some scientists put too much enthuses on saying ‘we will use genetic engineering to save the world’, whereas if they had taken a more problem solving based approach, saying this is a very powerful tool that we can use. But we are biologists addressing questions, rather than saying I’m a genetic engineer and this will do the trick. And of course we’re now 20-30 years on, and GM still has to prove its value for crop improvement, which I’m sure it will but it’s a long term thing.''

Interviewer:

''Do you think these two approaches could help the world, and how could these principles be used together? Do you think they could be used in a harmful way in the future? ''

Interviewee:

''Any sort of technology, there has to be a risk assessment of it and i think obviously there are areas, there are possibilities where damage could be done if technology is used in the wrong way or in the wrong hands. As qualified scientists you are employed to do research science, the guidelines are strict, ethics are very strict and I think that professional scientists should be given more credit and respect then they tend to get. And I think it’s very easy for groups with missions who are not trained scientists to do a lot of damage in the media, dismissively by coming out with a lot of stories which attracts a lot of media attention and in many cases are unfounded. So if, for example, we had protests about the GM potatoes trail here. So the director heard that we had...noticed there was a protest, and John Innes offered to engage in a constructive dialog with the key people within that group. And indeed offered host a discussion at John Innes. That was dismissed. I’m not blaming that round but there are other groups around who will, for example, brainwash children with literature about GM being bad. So my daughter came home from school when she was about six and told me that she had been told that GM was bad, and that organic is good. So i asked the teacher about that at parents evening. ''

Interviewer:

''What did she say?''

Interviewee:

''Well she looked a bit uneasy, of course you don’t know whether this is coming from the teachers personally view or not, but I think it is important to pick those things up. Not in a confrontational way but to ask, why did my daughter say this? ''

Interviewer:

''I suppose when people don’t understand it enough themselves its quite easy for someone to tell them it can be harmful.''

Interviewee:

''Yes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I also think to be fair; scientists and professionals in general can be, in some cases, very arrogant. And have a habits of telling people things. Although the public are not thick. Many members of the public are highly intelligent, well informed people who are perfectly capable of making a decision based on the evidence presented in front of them. And to dismiss the public as needing to be told something is really arrogant and unhelpful. Wanting to know what their views are, talking them onboard and having a dialog of concerns is important.''

Interviewer:

''Would you feel different about either of these approaches if more information was readily available? ..

Interviewee:

''I think i have access to a lot of information, a lot more information than many people, people not working in a scientific environment would have. I suppose I’ve been interested how many examples there are and direct comparisons between different ways of farming, side by side. So if you take cultivars are grow them organically and also grow them in replicated plots in different ways how many side by side comparisons have been done to enable people to say, well actually...I think the answer would be some things work better in some situations with some cultivars and others in other places.''