Team:KU Leuven/Practices/Ethics

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Research

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Future

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Notebook

Ethics

To learn more about the ethical and regulatory problems connected to synthetic biology we invited a panel of experts to discuss the topic with us on our symposium. The panel consisted of:
Prof. Bart De Moor (KU Leuven), Prof. Johan Robben (KU Leuven), Dr. Stijn Bruers (UGent), Prof. Vera van Noort (KU Leuven) and Victor Dillard (Desktop Genetics). The debate was moderated by Prof. Piet Van der Meer (Ugent/VUB). This page is expanded on what we learned during this debate.

What is synthetic biology?

Before delving into ethical questions and the details of regulation in synthetic biology, it is crucial to understand what is going to be debated about. Generally when five scientists are asked to define synthetic biology, five different answers will be given. 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; it is 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.”

Taking a closer look at all these definitions, we infer that human involvement is considered to be a major part of synthetic biology. At this point, more questions arise. How should we act? What should we build? What are the associated risks in the process? Which rules should guide us in the process and how should we enforce them?

How should synthetic biology be regulated?

Safety regulations are definitely needed. One only needs to look at the threat posed by invasive species to local biodiversity around the globe to see that releasing new species into an ecosystem can be problematic. On the other hand, excessive regulation could severely impede the progress of science. Regulators should strive to find a good compromise balancing the protection of the public and limiting research only when it is necessary. It turns out that current 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, it is not the technology itself but its novelty that decides the level of regulation applied. This can lead to absurd situations. Possibly this problem originates from the fact that the public perceives novel technologies as a bigger threat than well established ones and thus demands more strict regulations.

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. Furthermore scientist are under-represented in our parliaments. Often members of parliament are lawyers or people with a background in humanities, possibly having more scientists in parliament could lead to better science regulation.

To sum up solving problems related to synthetic biology regulation requires to tackle the 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 synthetic biology.