Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/Human practice/ethics

Synthetic biology, a novel advancement in science field, is a popular study these days. It opens the door for scientists to create theirideas 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 threatenour 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 products themselves, or worse with other natural organisms which 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 uncontrollableairborne transmission.²There have been such documented cases of virus leakage from laboratories. Forexample, the leakage of smallpox poxvirus in Birmingham laboratory in UnitedKingdom in 1978, ³SARS virus in Singapore and in China in 2003 and 2004 respectively¹, which controversially drawpeople’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 developingbiomass of synthetic biology, it would be exploiting our ecosystem like landsand other natural resources. For example, large pieces of land were used to thebio-fuel development due to land limitation, which puts intense pressure onland that potentially affect the food yield, communities and the currentecosystem.²

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

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

Regulations and policies can help solving these problems. Byregulating DNA synthesis through encouraging the companies which synthesizegenes to report the questionable DNA orders, this is effective in regulatingthe 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 andexperiments 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 isan integral part such that the design rights are protected and the “openness ofresources” of synthetic biology can be attained at the same time.

Enhancing the international cooperation in regulating andgoverning synthetic biology is an effective way to cope with biosafety andbiosecurity problems. Different countries can exchange their resources anddata, communicate to establish measures to wrestle with the existing concernsdue to synthetic biology regardless of the difficulties. For example, humangenome project paves the path for the success of countries collaboration insolving problems.¹

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

Another social aspect that we can take action is througheducation. Taking iGEM competition as an example, it provides opportunities forundergraduate and high school students to learn and practice synthetic biologyin a free-risk environment. Other than competition, some universities doprovide courses regarding to biosafety and biosecurity¹.

Although synthetic biology brings a lot of benefits to oursociety and the world, it also has some potential ethical problems that we needto focus on. As a result, it is part and parcel which we have to delve into itin order to carve out a better future with the development of the syntheticbiology.

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