Difference between revisions of "Team:Bordeaux/Practices"

Cap Sciences

Cap sciences is an animations center in Bordeaux, open to all which tries to help people discover and understand scientific phenomenons, new technologies and their industrial applications. They try to make science accessible to everyone and to engage a large variety of people in scientific activities. They were glad to hear about our project and we have been in contact with them all throughout the year, presenting what we've done on popularization. Here is a link to an interview we had with them at the beginning of the year:

This partnership also pushed us to go talk to people on the street to understand where their fear of genetically modified organisms comes from and to raise awareness on what is being done nowadays with synthetic biology in our everyday life. Caroline, Charlotte, Gilles and Diego spent a few afternoons in the streets of Bordeaux trying to get in contact with walkers. These conversations tought us that in Bordeaux the main concern about GMO's is that people are unaware about what they really are and the possibilities that synthetic biology offer us. Furthermore it made us start to realize the importance of scientific communication and for the need to think about our project from an ethical and safety point of view. For more information on the questions we asked ourselves please see the Ethics page!

SURVEY TO PUT HERE

Presentation of Synthetic Biology in Lycée Montesquieu

IGEM Bordeaux also wanted to raise teenager's awareness of synthetic biology. On 2015, May, 21st, Jean, Savandara and Lily made a presentation of synthetic biology at the school "Lycée Montesquieu" in Bordeaux, showing its interest by giving some interesting applications.

Before analyzing the ethical aspects of synthetic biology, it seems important to clearly define this new area of biology.[1]

What is synthetic biology?

Synthetic biology is a new field of research in biology which mixes science and engineering. It focuses on the conception and the construction of new reliable functions through the creation of biological systems or the re-engineering of organisms which already exist. The singularity of synthetic biology compared to traditional biology is about engineering live beings to have a predictable behavior. In order to do so, scientists focus on optimizing existing biosynthetic pathways or creating new ones while bypassing or suppressing inefficient pathways in order to increase productivity.

Three different approaches exist in synthetic biology:

• The metabolic engineering of the living beings by using biobricks (DNA sequences whose functions and assembly conditions are known). The biobricks are free of access on the WEB and can be synthesized on request.
• The production of minimal genomes and simplified organisms where new functions can be added to realize a task. This approach is often used for the optimization of existing processes.
• The synthesis of a whole synthetic genome that will be inserted in existing cell hosts or in synthetic cells. This field of synthetic biology may help scientists to understand how living organisms are created.

The organisms which come from these approaches can be used in both industrial applications (for example to produce drugs, biofuels, biomass or biopesticides) and in basic research as tools like biosensors (exemple) or against pollution (exemple).
"With these new tools emerging from synthetic biology, many possible fields conducting to different experiments in science permit the intellectual and technical expansion. Bioethics is necessary to prevent researcher about its ethical limits.

The responsibilities of the researcher for synthetic biology

The advances in biotechnology techniques also lead to dangerous possible applications causing a general fear of modified organisms by the public. They may be afraid of the organisms that can be created by synthetic biology, afraid that these organisms will somehow grow out of our control or have unexpected properties and will become dangerous for humanity. Our iGEM team observed this while talking to the general public on the streets of Bordeaux. For more information, look at our policy and practices page.

In order to limit this fear, the question of transparency is important for scientists. Besides publishing his results, the researcher has to be able to explain his research process and the challenges of the project by stating the explored and the ignored areas. The general audience has to be able to understand his whole scientific approach. The results found, thanks to this approach, contribute to the production of new knowledge and innovation that could be shared to the general public. It is also important for the researcher to analyze his results, looking at the possible negative impacts of his research and estimating the safety and environmental risks and as well the ethical problematic.

However, the researcher cannot be the only one in charge of the safety and ethics of his research.

The synthetic biology legal framework in Europe

Creating guidelines and a legal framework is essential for safety reasons and to reassure the general public. In Europe, there is no law specifically concerning synthetic biology but synthetic biology is framed by common biology laws (exemple du Mr) and ethic committees set up by the European Union.

Among these committees we can state:

• The European Commission
• The European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies
• The Inter-service Group on Ethics and EU policies
• The Executive Management for Research and Innovation

Specifically for synthetic biology, a European project called SYNBIOSAFE approved by the European Commission has focused on ethics and safety of synthetic biology. In 2012, it published an article concerning the bioethical and biosafety attentions in iGEM competitions.These two types of types of frameworks help the researcher to answer to many ethical questions arose on synthetic biology in the clearest way possible.

Therefore, not only law may limit synthetic biology. Aspects concerning Politics, Economy, and Philosophy could influence the bioethics questions.

How is the intellectual property defined in synthetic biology?

In sciences, the question of intellectual property is recurrent. Concerning synthetic biology, all of the objects used can be patented. Among these are genes, plasmids, biobricks, genetic circuit broads, software modeling of mechanisms etc. Thinking about patentability of live being is very important in synthesis biology because we use living organisms. Apposing a patent allows appropriating a technical invention, as a produce or a process. This statute permits to protect the invention, it’s also called the “invention patent”. To elude an amalgam between creation and scientific discovery, we’ll try to define the difference between these two values.

We can define a discovery as a revelation of what was previously unknown, but already being. Indeed, the scientific discovery is supported by study publications which are in free access for who wants it. So, we can consider it is a part of the common knowledge, ownerless. However, the creation is a process or a product which brings a solution for a particular problem. So it is a new element, previously a lacking element. An invention is supported by a patent. In our case, in synthetic biology, it can be a whole organism, a gene or a DNA sequence. The National Consultative Ethics Committee (CCNE) try to delimitate those processes, it makes impossible to take ownership of organisms already being, with informations which are just revealed and makes sure that a discovery won’t become an invention. Also, the patentability of an element won’t be possible when it was extracted of its natural environment to live in a synthetic environment, or an element which was reproduced in a synthetic environment, but already naturally being.

Here, it is a polemical subject because in synthetic biology, we are making “organic inventions”. So, there is a question: “Is it acceptable to be a living being’s owner?” “What about an interior component of it?” In this last case, whose belong the interest element? At the individue? Or at that one who modified it?

The relation to living and its simplification

With the emergence of synthetic biology, the definition of living may be modified. Indeed, in this field, researchers can generate or modify the genome of an existing organism, insert a whole artificial genome in an existing organism or create a new artificial organism. We can wonder if these modifications made by humans will not have an impact in the nature of the organism. Can we consider that an organism is living if it has been totally or partially created artificially? Synthetic biology regards the “objects” which are created as living beings because they are built from the cell, the basic unit of life. They have the property of self-organization and identical or similar self-replication to those of natural living beings. So we can considerate that they are “alive”.
With these "new" organisms, an living being may be considerate as simple and easy to create. Once decoding the DNA of a organism, synthetic biologist is able to do everything with a bacteria, a yeast or animals bigger, tihinking that are like "machines". We can wonder if we can considerate life as a tool and find the limit between an ethical scientific project and an unethical scientific project.

In conclusion, these ethical considerations make us think about the ethical aspects of our project Cured Vine.
First, it is important to us that our project was related with transparency, so that uninitiated people can apprehend our scientific approach. Our Wiki, in free access on the WEB, allows us to clearly and concisely expose all the thinking steps which governed our Cur’dVine project. It also allows us to share our knowledge and results to as many people as possible. New iGEM teams or other researchers could use our results to continue our project.
Also, our implication in annex projects such as Cap Sciences, making street interviews about GMO's or high school presentations of synthetic biology, makes democratizing synthetic biology to the general public. All these actions incited us to think about the ethical questions that the general audience would wonder.
That help us to consider his profits and risks. Without being paranoiac, we have to think of all potential dangers that may create our molecule. The ethical aspects of our project are strongly link to safety, that's why more details will be in the next section.