"

From 2011.igem.org

Security and Bioethics

        As we are sparing no effort to reform our environment and motivating progress of human beings, one question that we are often faced with is whether our morality can bear the reform and deconstruction on ourselves? From organ transplantation to test tube baby, from artificial heart to cloned animal, for the majority of ordinary people who are pursuing happiness in life, every breakthrough in biotechnology is shocking the sensitive nerves of human’s self-recognition and bringing about concerns on new social issues. At this time, synthetic biology unavoidably stands on the very cusp.
        For people in many countries and areas, at least in China, bioethics in the “ivory tower” does not focus on the same point with the ethic topics that cared about by the majority. That is, the masses’ views are more practical and direct. They seldom concern about those abstract philosophy topic such as “the significance of life” and “the value of soul”. What attracts more their attention is the impact and effect of the newborn technologies on health, safety and economics. Here we are also sincerely expecting to discuss these questions from the following aspects.

Safety in iGEM

        Since we started our experiments in the laboratory, we have always been focusing on the safety during research. With the instructions by senior students and professors, we quickly learned how to launching our work while strictly obeying the rigorous safety rules in Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the academy, it requires complex treatments on all materials before their coming in and going out. There is perfect isolation provision under supervision all the time. You can see details insafety question .In addition to safety during experiments, we also pay attention to ethical safety and people’s concerns on this academic field.

Nature, Earth and Human，life has its own rules

       “God created everything, including human beings who can synthesis lives.” This sophistical statement intends to convert that what the biologists are doing may not probably violate “God’s rule”. Interestingly, the resource of our program’s inspiration, Lao Tzu, who was the founder of Tao philosophy in ancient Chinese 2500 years ago, had left us a mantra, “The mystery of longstanding nature lies in its non-self-propagation.”
        As far as Lao Tzu saw, it was because of its forever tolerating and accepting all the existences and their reasonability without intervention that made the universe lasted so long a time. If Spinoza had read about the “Tao Te Ching” written by Lao Tzu, he must have felt corresponded by the somewhat naturalism views in that book. Why don’t we recognize synthetic biology in this perspective?
        If we see all the artificial reforms of life itself as scary, then all men have taken a dangerous step at the moment they learned shaving. Even from a systematic aspect, if we see the earth biosphere as a huge organism, it seems to have all the key characteristics of a living creature: the ability to response to environmental intervention, material circular system similar to metabolism, sustained self-building and changing...then human’s reform on nature is always processing as one part of its construction. From this angle synthetic biology seems harmless and non-innovative. Ancient Chinese often considered the whole world as an organic unity of the sky, the earth and human beings. The birth, development and death of all the living creatures are cycling and inter-deriving. Our ancestors had used artificial selection to accumulate specific informal information during inheriting quite long time ago, thus nurtured goldfish from carp, achieving the reform of fish’s gene. Why synthetic biology deserve the infamy as an immoral violence towards nature?
        In the view of philosophy, as any new technology, risk does not mean blasphemy to nature. For who doubt the core concept of synthetic biology may shake the natural value of life, “Life owns its rule.” is probably the best explanation.

The Right of Being Informed on Safety

        In an interesting biology salon about iGEM, I had raised such a question, “If a vegetarian is faced with a cabbage that can express animal protein, should he (or she) accept it?” Most represents thought the cabbage had no big differences between a natural vegetable, in essence. Still there were two opposite opinions about whether it could be accepted. However, if the vegetarian had taken it without being informed, then almost all the represents thought it should not be allowed to happen. This is the ethical request for the right of being informed on safety.
       When Chinese citizens and scholars lead the discussion on “Whether trans-genetic rice could be allowed to plant and produce” in 2009, most ordinary people started to learn systematically both sides of the coin about gene-engineering. When it comes to trans-genetic creatures, scientists and ordinary people often hold significantly different opinions.
        Most publics do not understand (all) the biological safety methods mentioned by scientists. It is the potential problems that they do care. During recent years, public attention raised by media has made these keywords such as “trans-gene”, “safety”, “ethics” become increasingly popular. Even when I talked about our iGEM work to one of my friends who had no biological background, her first response was, “I thought your program is kind of dangerous.” Here, it is undeniable to be astonished by people’s vigilance of this field. Our team members, though, have always been dedicated to spreading what we know about it to more people.
        The largest confusion of the public comes from their lack in related knowledge. During a long period of time, scientific debates about the safety issue of synthetic biology were just like a couple of parents quarreling themselves without enough attentions on their scared children (the public) beside. Not all countries have completed rules and regulations protecting people’s right of thorough information. For the public, being informed about safety is not as simple as a “synthetic biology” label on goods, but lies in their right to still choose pure natural product while knowing why they make such choices. Nowadays, safety awareness, which scientists and government should corporately take responsibility to guide, has been undermined by some fickle, misleading media reports. (As we can see, media is also a double-edged sword.) Encountered by this situation, as I pointed out, either side of debating scientific scholars should cooperate to make efforts because it is one part of achievements in human’s benefits by science and technology.
        Here we take priority to discussing the right of being informed instead of safety itself. It is because the former can be more important than the latter in ethics. The principle of “Safety First”, however, is still mostly respected.