Team:KU Leuven/Practices/Ethics
Ethics
This ethics page is built on the ethical debate that was part of our symposium.
Definition of synthetic biology.
Before delving into ethical questions and the details of regulation it is crucial to understand what we are talking
about when we use the term synthetic biology. Generally when five scientists are asked to define synthetic biology the
answer will be five different definitions. What we heard during the symposium was:
Debate definitions
“Synthetic biology is biology on steroids.”
“Synthetic biology is the biological analogue to what happened in the semiconductor industry its biology going
from the analysis phase to the design phase.”
“Synthetic biology is a brand, which brings biologists and people from other fields together.”
“Synthetic biology is man made biology.”
“Synthetic biology is the construction of cells from the bottom up.”
On a closer all of these definitions consider human involvement to be a part of synthetic biology. For the first
definition it is of course humans, who put biology on steroids. The second definition needs humans, who design
biological circuits. The third definition has people from different field working together. And finally the last two
ones have humans building biology.
At this point naturally the questions arise. What should we build? What are the risks involved in the process? Which
rules should guide us in the process and how should we enforce them?
How should synthetic biology be regulated?
A first opinion is that safety regulation is definitely needed. One only needs to look at the thread posed by invasive
species to local biodiversity around the globe to see that releasing new species into an ecosystem can be problematic.
However it turns out that European regulation is highly inconsistent. Some low risk technologies are highly regulated,
while at the same time high risk approaches remain unregulated. The problem originates from the fact that in Europe when
it comes to regulation not the technology itself but its novelty. Which can lead to absurd situations.
What can we learn from the public?
Politicians follow the public opinion when devising the rules that scientists will have to follow. However often the public is guided by emotion instead of facts. Additionally the public debate is cognitively biased, often environmentalists are communicating fear. Therefore it is vital to inform the public better about the benefits and risks of synthetic biology. The goal must be to stimulated more evidence based thinking in the debate. It is not enough to just provide the facts. Companies and universities have to communicate emotionally and rationally.
To sum up to solve problems related to synthetic biology regulation we need to tackle to cognitive bias that deeply roots in the current European debate. To do that we devised educational tools and conducted a survey to find out how people feel about syntehtic biology.
Contact
Address: Celestijnenlaan 200G room 00.08 - 3001 Heverlee
Telephone n°: +32(0)16 32 73 19
Mail: igem@chem.kuleuven.be
