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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 in safety 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.
          We conducted a campus survey aiming at knowing about people's recognition level of of synthetic biology, specifically for non-university students and teachers.
Our main survey object are store owners, security personnel, nearby residents and so on. We believe this survey can reflect non-scholar community's basic understanding and views on the synthetic biology in Qingdao.
        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.

Sword of Synthetic Biology

       From horrible super-bacterial weapons to the uncontrolled pervasion of pathogenic mutant; from trans-genetic monster to the confusion on species with mixed genome; during the brainstorm before we started, imaging all kinds of disasters in ethics that synthetic biology could possibly contribute can be edited into a dozen of Hollywood blockbusters, only needed to add some romantic routines.
       Safety issue of synthetic biology is unavoidable and must be faced seriously. No matter whether someone think some of the flu pandemics were caused by experimental accidents, even SARS and “Typhoid Mary” are warning us the potential threaten from unknown pathogens. The danger in synthetic biological technology stands obviously in this aspect. Today we use every effective method to avoid the survival of the transformed bacteria in wild environment. To take our program (“Chinese Philosophy in E.coli”) as an example, five bacteria cooperate together only when they grow together, the absence of any of them will contribute to making the entire rested disable to survive. However, it is not this way in “Jurassic Park”. Mutation in genes weakens the efficiency of scientific method. Although exchanges and flows of genes among different species rarely happen, artificially transformed bacteria, once illegally premeditated, can result in extremely malicious function. Soon human will have to struggle to be the survivor in realistic “Jurassic Park”. The multiple regulations and supervision of system, morality and technology cannot avoid one hundred percent of the possible danger. It is also a common concern of the public and scientists. It still largely calls for responsibility of all the researchers who hold core techniques and managers in this field to treat what in their EP tubes serious.
       Synthetic biology might be still facing some ethical issues, such as if some human genes can be ligated with other animals’ genes. In fact, a number of bacteria made from fermentation engineering, like artemisinin and insulin, which have saved hundreds of thousand lives, are all involved in inter-species recombination of genes. Just like what Darwin had faced when 150 years ago “The Origins of Species” was published, it needs a long procedure to accept the evolution from animal to human. Similarly, it needs time to accept the application of synthetic biology.
       As the fundamental principle of scientific work, safety should not be ignored and is even non-ignorable. Except for advocating the spread of experimental provisions in safety, supervision and participation in formulating related rules by the public society are also important. For example:

• Any product of synthetic biology should not have any pathogenic and infectious potential.
• Any product of synthetic biology should be efficiently controlled under survival tolerance condition.
• Any product of synthetic biology should be set with suicide function and limit of propagation.

       Even so, like nuclear physics, artificial intelligence and other controversy topics, only with concerns on safety in this field by the entire human beings can we reduce the risks to the minimum, enabling one powerful technology to benefit the whole world, promoting living conditions and the development of civilization.

Bioethics in China: We are thinking

“Why bioethics emerge? Because history proves that it is not enough to depend only on the self-discipline of scientists.”, said by Renzong Qiu, a Chinese bioethicists.
       Even for the conventional area of bioethics, we are seldom involved in it, let alone the ethics in synthetic biology. When we were talking the related topics with our schoolmates, a large amount of opinions had already formed in our words. When it comes to a new species, which could be created through ligating standardized DNA fragments and serving for us, whoever fascinated by life science will see it as an attractive trial. On the other hand, as for its ethical consideration, we believe that what is important is to think, to be self-disciplined, and to improve it without individual preferences and escaping. Thinking in ethics’ way provides us a chance to reflect and solve all the predictable ethic problems to protect our values and believes.
       To sum up, for all ethical issues of synthetic biology in the level of philosophy, we believe to “Follow the Tao (rules) of nature.” What deserves more focus is the recognition of science by people, who act as key role in society, and safety in bioscience itself. As we insist, via our efforts together, we human beings can overcome our weakness to apply every new scientific achievement for a world with more freedom, peace, and happiness.
       Last but not least, to remind us of the proper attitude in face of what we have learned on knowledge and technology, please allow me to quote our motto, which was excerpted from an ancient Chinese book 2000 years ago, “The Great Learning”:
       Inquire with an honest and genuine heart till understanding; keep self-improving till achieving perfection.

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