Debates on the role of biotechnology in food production are beset with notorious ambiguities. This already applies to the term “biotechnology” itself. Does it refer to the use and modification of living organisms in general, or rather to a specific set of technologies developed quite recently in the form of bioengineering and genetic modification? No less ambiguous are discussions concerning the question to what extent biotechnology must be regarded as “unnatural.” In this article it will be argued (...) that, in order to disentangle some of the ambiguities involved, we have to broaden the temporal horizon of the debate. Ideas about biotechniques and naturalness have evolved in various socio-historical contexts and their historical origins will determine to a considerable extent their actual meaning and use in contemporary deliberations. For this purpose, a comprehensive timetable is developed, beginning with the Neolithic revolution ~10,000 years ago (resulting in the emergence of agriculture and the Common Human Pattern) up to the biotech revolution as it has evolved from the 1970s onwards—sometimes referred to as a second “Genesis.” The concept of nature that emerged in the context of the “Common Human Pattern” differs considerably from traditional philosophical concepts of nature (such as coined by Aristotle), as well as from the scientific view of nature conveyed by the contemporary life sciences. A clarification of these different historical backdrops will allow us to understand and elucidate the conceptual ambiguities that are at work in contemporary debates on biotechnology and the place of human beings in nature. (shrink)

In his book The Biotech Century Jeremy Rifkin makes arguments about the dangers of market-driven genetic biotechnology in medical and agricultural contexts. Believing that Darwinism is too compromised by a competitive ethic to resist capitalist depredations of the genetic commons, and perhaps hoping to pick up anti-Darwinian allies, he turns for support to unorthodox non-Darwinian views of evolution. The Darwinian tradition, more closely examined, contains resources that might better serve his argument. The robust tradition associated with Theodosius Dobzhansky, Ernst (...) Mayr, and others provides an alternative, scientifically sound basis for challenging the rhetoric of genetic reductionism. (shrink)

Recombinant DNA technology is an essential area of life engineering. The main aim of research in this field is to experimentally explore the possibilities of repairing damaged human DNA, healing or enhancing future human bodies. Based on ethnographic research in a Czech biochemical laboratory, the article explores biotechnological corporealities and their specific ontology through dealings with bio-objects, the bodywork of scientists. Using the complementary concepts of utopia and heterotopia, the text addresses the situation of bodies and bio-objects in a laboratory. (...) Embodied utopias are analyzed as material semiotic phenomena that are embodied by scientists in their visions and emotions and that are related to potential bodies and to future, not-yet-actualized embodiments. As a counterpart to this, the text explores embodied heterotopias, which are always the other spaces, like biotechnological bio-objects that are simulated in computers or stored in special solutions. (shrink)

In this article, the authors review some contemporary cases where biotechnologies have been employed, where they have had global implications, and where there has been considerable debate. The authors argue that the concept of dignity, which lies at the center of such documents as the 2005 Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the International Declaration on Human Genetic Data (2003) and the Universal Declaration on the Human Genome and Human Rights (1997) is useful, if not necessary, in engaging in (...) decision making in relation to the moral evaluation of biotechnologies on a global scale. (shrink)

Biotechnology might contribute to solving food safety and security challenges. However, gene technology has been under public scrutiny, linked to the framing of the media and public discourse. The study aims to investigate people’s perceptions and acceptance of food biotechnology with focus on transgenic genetic modification versus genome editing. An online experiment was conducted with participants from the United Kingdom and Switzerland. The participants were presented with the topic of food biotechnology and more specifically with experimentally varied (...) vignettes on transgenic and genetic modification and genome editing. The results suggest that participants from both countries express higher levels of acceptance for genome editing compared to transgenic genetic modification. The general and personal acceptance of these technologies depend largely on whether the participants believe the application is beneficial, how they perceive scientific uncertainty, and the country they reside in. Our findings suggest that future communication about gene technology should focus more on discussing trade-offs between using an agricultural technologies and tangible and relevant benefits, instead of a unidimensional focus on risk and safety. (shrink)

How may emergent biotechnologies impact upon our relations with other animals? To what extent are any changes indicative of new relations between society and nature? This paper critically explores which sociological tools can contribute to an understanding of the technologisation of animal bodies. By drawing upon interview data with animal scientists I argue that such technologies are being partly shaped by broader changes in agriculture. The complexity of genomics trajectories in animal science is partly fashioned through the deligitimisation of (...) the productivist paradigm but continue to sit in tension around particular conceptions of sustainability in farm animal production.In spite of this deligitimisation process genomics is now being framed in the context of a new productivism (termed the livestock revolution) bound up in projected global changes in animal consumption during the first half of the 21st century. This potentially jars against both social trends that seek to re-enchant animal life and sustainability discourses which include social and environmental contexts. Nevertheless the possibility of a new productivism is supported by various interconnected trends including the emergence of a discourse of the 'bioeconomy' and a liberal regulatory apparatus for farm animal breeding technologies. Ultimately an understanding of the possibility of emerging new bio-capitalisations on animal life should be set in a broader context of competing agricultural paradigms as well as ongoing tensions over 'naturalness' in human/animal relations. (shrink)

Michael W. Fox, the respected Vice President of the Humane Society of the United States, here looks at the biogenetic controversy and draws some troubling conclusions. Biogenetic research is capable of producing new life forms whose effects may alter the intricate balance of Nature in ways no one can foretell. "Superpigs" that grow larger than any pig before, cows that breed on an accelerated cycle, "new" vegetables, tomatoes that won't freeze - such new life forms can now be patented, making (...) them potential sources of enormous profits for biotech companies. And the record of government, academia, and industry is spotty at best at protecting the earth - yet these same forces are in control of the biogenetic future. Superpigs and Wondercorn is at once an eye-opening survey of a dramatic, sometimes frightening new technology and an impassioned plea to use these new tools in the long-term interests of the global ecosystem. (shrink)

Biotechnological advancements during the last half-century have forced humanity to come to grips with the possibility of a post-human future. The ever-evolving opinions about how society should anticipate this biotechnological frontier demand a language that will describe our new future and discuss its ethics. After the Genome brings together expert voices from the realms of ethics, rhetoric, religion, and science to help lead complex conversations about end-of-life care, the relationship between sin and medicine, and the protection of human rights in (...) a post-human world. With chapters on the past and future of the science-warfare narrative, the rhetoric of care and its effect on those suffering, black rhetoric and biotechnology, planning for the end of life, regenerative medicine, and more, After the Genome yields great insight into the human condition and moves us forward toward a genuinely humane approach to who we are and who we are becoming. (shrink)

The book discusses some of the stages in the development of genetics, biotechnology in terms of basic strategy of humanity towards the formation of a modern agrarian civilization. Agricultural civilization is seen as part of the biosphere and primary user of its energy flows. Consistently a steps of creation of management tools for live objects to increasing the number of food security of mankind are outlines. The elements of the biosphere degradation started in the results of human activities, and (...) the ways of their compensation. are discussed.The importance of the cooperation of experts in different areas of knowledge in the development of new approaches to the management of genetic resources of the planet is discussed too. (shrink)

Developments in biotechnology and genomics have moved the issue of patenting scientific and technological inventions toward the center of interest. In particular, the patentability of genes of plants, animals, or humans and of genetically modified (parts of) living organisms has been discussed, and questioned, from various normative perspectives. This paper aims to contribute to this debate. For this purpose, it first explains a number of relevant aspects of the theory and practice of patenting. The focus is on a (...) special and increasingly significant type of patents, namely product patents. The paper provides three general arguments against the concept and practice of product patenting. The first argument briefly considers the claim that patents are legitimate because they promote socially useful innovation. Against this claim, it is argued that product patents may hamper rather than promote such innovation. The second and main argument concludes that product patents are not adequately based on actual technological inventions, as they should be according to the usual criteria of patentability. The principal moral issue is that product patents tend to reward patentees for inventions they have not really made available. The final argument proposes a method for patenting the heat of the sun. Assuming that granting this patent will be generally considered absurd, the argument exposes a further, fundamental problem of the concept and practice of product patenting. (shrink)

What happens in the world’s most advanced life sciences laboratories, why those activities are important, and whether and how they can be brought under a uniform governance framework might be considered exquisitely esoteric matters in the context of the great geopolitical questions of our time. Nonetheless, the emerging issues in biotechnology—the use of living organisms to create new products and especially in the control of the human genome—represent a useful stress test for the future of the norms inherent in (...) the liberal international order (LIO). My case study will be the nearly universal public outrage following the announcement by a Chinese scientist that he had engaged in the first gene editing of several embryos that survived to birth, an episode that has created an opportunity to assess the global consensus about the ethics of biotechnology with regard to human DNA. Although not as explicit or well understood or enforced as weapons treaties, trade arrangements, or monetary institutions, the norms around biotechnology are very much a product of the post-World War II liberal consensus. (shrink)

In discussions on genetic engineering and plant breeding, the intrinsic value of plants and crops is used as an argument against this technology. This paper focuses on the new field of plant genomics, which, according to some, is almost the same as genetic engineering. This raises the question whether the intrinsic value of plants could also be used as an argument against plant genomics. We will discuss three reasons why plant genomics could violate the intrinsic value of (...) plants: 1. genomics is part of biotechnology; 2. genomics equals genetic engineering; 3. plant genomics may enhance trends that lead to the instrumentalization of plants. We will conclude that in the biotic view the intrinsic value of plants is violated by plant genomics only in case of 'the genomics equals genetic engineering scenario'. (shrink)

Biotechnology and genomic innovation are seen as increasingly important for achieving public health goals in Africa. In particular, vaccines based on advances in genomic technology are deemed vital in the fight against HIV/aids. Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) provide a collaborative mechanism to ensure these vaccines are developed when the private sector lacks incentives to develop these products. These partnerships provide new mechanisms for transferring the knowledge required to ensure vaccine development occurs as quickly and efficiently as possible. One such accine (...) partnership is the South African AIDS Vaccine Initiative (SAAVI). This has been successful in ensuring 'value added' (benefit gained by taking part) is created for those involved particularly in the area of intangible value added determinants of collaboration and knowledge capacity. This paper outlines the results of a case study of SAAVI and argues that it provides evidence of a need to strengthen our understanding of the linkage between wider conceptual 'systems' of innovation and health. In particular, it espouses the usefulness of 'Systems of Innovation' thinking as a means to ensure that more specific focus is placed on process outputs such as collaboration and knowledge capacity. This will ensure that necessary knowledge flow is transferred between those working in the vaccine project for more efficient and effective operations. The research also raises questions about the possibility of such case studies highlighting areas of attention that need addressing if greater linkage is to occur between innovation and health at a wider health research policy level. (shrink)

Galton defined eugenics as the science of improvement of the human race germ plasm through better breeding and claimed that the study of agencies under social control which may improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations should be pursued. Eugenic theoretical approaches and eugenic state political policies are deliberate intentions of adopting eugenic measures, whether or not they have been actually implemented and no matter how successful the results of those practices might have been. They involve agents and (...) goals to be achieved. Some eugenists intended that eugenic programmes should be enforced by state agencies; others defended that those programmes might be implemented on a voluntary choice. The eugenic consequences of practices that were not deliberately designed to have eugenic goals are also considered. This latter category is very often relevant while discussing eugenics as related to a number of new biotechnologies. The concern with eugenics today does not focus so much on the risks of population improvement programmes to be implemented by central powers; nevertheless, practices adopted by health institutions, insurance and legal agencies may lead to eugenic consequences. The social and eugenic implications of the Human Genome Project are discussed. (shrink)

The systems of patent rights in force in Europe today, both at the level of national law and on the regional level, contain general clauses prohibiting the patenting of inventions whose publication and exploitation would be contrary to “ordre public” or morality. Recent years have brought frequent discussion about limiting the possibility of patent protection for biotechnological inventions for ethical reasons. This is undoubtedly a result of the dynamic development in this field in the last several years. Human genome sequencing, (...) the first successful cloning of mammals, and the progress in human stem cell research present humanity with many new questions of an ethical nature. Directive 98/44 of the European Parliament and of the Council of July 6, 1998, on the Legal Protection of Biotechnological Inventions created a new basis for patent protection in this field of technology. Based on the European experience to now, however, it must be said that patent law is not the right place to legislate the consequences of the morality of an invention. (shrink)

Genome editing enables very accurate alterations to DNA. It promises profound and potentially disruptive changes in healthcare, agriculture, industry, and the environment. This paper presents a multidisciplinary analysis of the contemporary development of genome editing and the tension between continuity and change. It draws on the idea that actors involved in innovation are guided by “sociotechnical regimes” composed of practices, institutions, norms, and cultural beliefs. The analysis focuses on how genome editing is emerging in different domains and whether this marks (...) continuity or disruption of the established biotechnology regime. In conclusion, it will be argued that genome editing is best understood as a technology platform that is being powerfully shaped by this existing regime but is starting to disrupt the governance of biotechnology. In the longer term is it set to converge with other powerful technology platforms, which together will fundamentally transform the capacity to engineer life. (shrink)

This article explores whether and how the biotechnologization process that the fuel-plant Jatropha curcas is undergoing might strengthen local sustainable development. It focuses on the ongoing efforts of the multi-stakeholder network Gota Verde to harness Jatropha within local small-scale production systems in Yoro, Honduras. It also looks at the genomics research on Jatropha conducted by the Dutch research institute Plant Research International, specifically addressing the ways in which that research can assists local development in Honduras. A territorial approach is (...) applied for analysis employing a three domain concept (local sustainable biotechnological development) of territory, technology and re-territorialization. The article suggests that, although the biotechnologization process (through genomics) of Jatropha within the socio-technical framework of the institute and multi-stakeholder networks is an ongoing process––and different trajectories are, therefore, still open––the process can, nevertheless, strengthen local sustainable development. (shrink)

New techniques for modifying the genomes of agricultural organisms create difficult ethical challenges. We provide a novel framework to replace worn-out ethical lenses relying on ‘naturalness’ and ‘crossing species lines.’ Thinking of agricultural intervention as a ‘negotiation’ of ‘integrity’ and ‘agency’ provides a flexible framework for considering techniques such as genome editing with CRISPR/Cas systems. We lay out the framework by highlighting some existing uses of integrity in environmental ethics. We also provide an example of our lens at work by (...) looking at the creation of ‘cisgenic’ potatoes to resist late potato blight. We conclude by highlighting three distinct advantages offered by the integrity framework. These include a more fitting way to look at the practice of scientific researchers, a more inclusive way to consider ethics around agriculture, and a more flexible way to provide the ethical grounds for regulation in different cultural contexts. (shrink)

Plant genome editing has the potential to become another chapter in the intractable debate that has dogged agricultural biotechnology. In 2016, 107 Nobel Laureates accused Greenpeace of emotional and dogmatic campaigning against agricultural biotechnology and called for governments to defy such campaigning. The Laureates invoke the authority of science to argue that Greenpeace is putting lives at risk by opposing agricultural biotechnology and Golden Rice and is notable in framing Greenpeace as unethical and its views as marginal. (...) This paper examines environmental, food and farming NGOs’ social and ethical concerns about genome editing, situating these concerns in comparison to alternative ethical assessments provided by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, a key actor in this policy debate. In doing so, we show that participant NGOs and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics share considerable concerns about the social and ethical implications of genome editing. These concerns include choices over problem/solution framing and broader terminology, implications of regulatory and research choices on consumer choice and relations of power. However, GM-engaged NGOs and the Nuffield Council on Bioethics diverge on one important area: the NGOs seek to challenge the existing order and broaden the scope of debate to include deeply political questions regarding agricultural and technological choices. This distinction between the ethical positions means that NGOs provide valuable ethical insight and a useful lens to open up debate and discussion on the role of emerging technologies, such as genome editing, and the future of agriculture and food sovereignty. (shrink)

Genome Editing Techniques are seen to be at the frontier of current research in the field of emerging biotechnologies. The latest revolutionary development, the so-called CRISPR technology, represents a paradigmatic example of the ambiguity of such techniques and has resulted in an international interdisciplinary debate on whether or not it is necessary to ban the application of this technique by means of a moratorium on its use for human germline modifications, particularly in human embryos in the reproduction process. However, given (...) that other germline engineering techniques like mitochondrial DNA transfer techniques are already permitted and applied, the question arises what lies at the root of the apparent social unease about the modification of the human germline by Genome Editing Techniques like CRISPR. Against this background, the book seeks to make a substantial contribution to the current debate about a responsible and participatory framework for research on emerging biotechnologies by analysing underlying perceptions, attitudes, arguments and the reasoning on Genome Editing Techniques. (shrink)

Rather than seek to distinguish hype from legitimate promise, it may be more helpful to think about personalised medicine as embodying a promissory economy which serves both to mobilize resources for research and — partly at least — to determine the ends to which that research is directed. Personalised medicine is a development of the larger promissory economy of medical biotechnology. As such, it systematically conflates public benefit with the pursuit of commercial and especially pharmaceutical interests. Consequently, research and (...) development in personalised medicine tends to favour the production of expensive new treatments over unprofitable forms of prevention or more effective use of older therapies. A rebalancing of research priorities is needed to favour the pursuit of public benefit, even when it does not deliver private profits. This will in turn require sustained reflection, self-criticism and often self-denial on the part of public research funders and the scientists they support. (shrink)

When Kai Kupferschmidt writes about CRISPR-based gene editing in German, he faces an obstacle: there's no exact translation for “editing” that has the same connotations as it has in English. Instead, as he explained last fall at The Hastings Center's preconference symposium on new genetic technologies at the World Conference of Science Journalists, he draws on a variety of phrases, including “genome surgery,” which conveys precision in Kupferschmidt's assessment, and “gene scissors,” which communicates CRISPR's mechanistic nature. But in any language, (...) explaining CRISPR is difficult. It's a challenge I face at The Hastings Center, where I write about biotechnology for a public audience. (shrink)

Individualized care and equality of care remain two imperatives for formulating any scientifically and morally informed public health policy. Yet both continue to be elusive goals, even in the age of genomics, proteomics, and evidence-based medicine. Nonetheless, with the rapid growth and improvement of human biotechnologies, the need to individualize therapies while allocating medical care equally may result partly from our biological constitution. Human beings are all unique, and their biological differences significantly influence variability in disease causation and therapeutic (...) response to treatments. However, because humans have equal moral worth, there is no ethically justifiable reason to establish an a .. (shrink)

With the completion and the success of the unraveling of the human and some nonhuman genetic codes comes the optimism that science, once again, is at the threshold of transforming human existence in an unprecedented way. The sequencing of the human genome with the science and technology by which it occurs is seen as a potential gateway to man's final conquest of most of the health and health related disorders that have for long plagued the human race.While some developing nations (...) like Cuba, Mexico and India have taken the initiative to be major players in the genomics arena by exploring its potentials towards enhancing improved quality of life for their citizens, the majority of others, especially in Africa, still occupy the spectators' seat. If this apparent lukewarm attitude continues, it implies that the present dependence on the developed nations as remote beneficiaries of gains of scientific breakthroughs will persist. It also means that the expectation that genomics should, among other benefits, re-dress the inequalities of access to health care between the rich and poor nations may be a mirage for a long time to come.The expected benefits from the human genome project and genomics technologies are fascinating and hold the ace for improving the standards of living of the African people. However, these expectations are futuristic, time-dependent and capital intensive. They require commitments of national governments to policy re-orientation about research and development, strategic planning, resource mobilization, priority setting; and establishing, promoting and sustaining enabling environments for scientific and technological breakthrough. No doubt, there is dire need for assistance from the developed and the frontline developing nations in this regard. However, great initiatives and deep commitments to making significant scholarly contributions to the advancement of biotechnology and its potentials in the near future must come from within. (shrink)

LeRoy Walters was a central figure in debates about federal policy regarding genetics and biotechnology—a neutral, publicly engaged philosopher and religious studies academic who put his skills to work in national service. His career spanned the emergence of biotechnology as a field in the 1970s until his retirement. His interests reached from moral philosophical theory to Holocaust studies to practical concerns about public policy in genetics. We focus here on the role of bioethics in policy related to the (...) advent of human gene transfer, the Human Genome Project, and the emergence of biotechnology as a commercial enterprise. We focus on his role as an academic influencing the government strand of the “triple helix”... (shrink)

From the 1980s onwards, the Roslin Institute and its predecessor organizations faced budget cuts, organizational upheaval and considerable insecurity. Over the next few decades, it was transformed by the introduction of molecular biology and transgenic research, but remained a hub of animal geneticists conducting research aimed at the livestock-breeding industry. This paper explores how these animal geneticists embraced genomics in response to the many-faceted precarity that the Roslin Institute faced, establishing it as a global centre for pig genomics (...) research through forging and leading the Pig Gene Mapping Project (PiGMaP); developing and hosting resources, such as a database for genetic linkage data; and producing associated statistical and software tools to analyse the data. The Roslin Institute leveraged these resources to play a key role in further international collaborations as a hedge against precarity. This adoption of genomics was strategically useful, as it took advantage of policy shifts at the national and European levels towards funding research with biotechnological potential. As genomics constitutes a set of infrastructures and resources with manifold uses, the development of capabilities in this domain also helped Roslin to diversify as a response to precarity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to better define the areas of conflict and agreement between value ethics and the theoretical ethics of the market processes at work in the biotechnology industry. Despite the apparent lack of ethics in an oligopolistically competitive pharmaceuticals industry, the paper concludes that the current stage of development of the medical biotechnology subindustry offers unparalleled opportunities for ethical systems to influence the market-based development of biotechnology. Ethical conversations between doctors and biologists with ethicists can help (...) the market absorb more of the reflective wisdom that ethics brings when discussing such issue areas as justice, patents of the human genome, and modifications of the human genome. If conversations between ethicists and biotechnological managers and doctors are successful the metaphors of market-based financing may be refined and the knowledge base of the good increased. (shrink)

This article examines how minimal genome research mobilizes philosophical concepts such as minimality and essentiality. Following a historical approach the article aims to uncover what function this terminology plays and which problems are raised by them. Specifically, four historical moments are examined, linked to the work of Harold J. Morowitz, Mitsuhiro Itaya, Eugene Koonin and Arcady Mushegian, and J. Craig Venter. What this survey shows is a historical shift away from historical questions about life or descriptive questions about specific organisms (...) towards questions that explore biological possibilities: what are possible forms of minimal genomes, regardless of whether they exist in nature? Moreover, it highlights a fundamental ambiguity at work in minimal genome research between a universality claim and a standardization claim: does a minimal genome refer to the minimal gene set for any organism whatsoever? Or does it refer rather to a gene set that will provide stable, robust and predictable behaviour, suited for biotechnological applications? Two diagnoses are proposed for this ambiguity: a philosophical diagnosis of how minimal genome research either misunderstands the ontology of biological entities or philosophically misarticulates scientific practice. Secondly, a historical diagnosis that suggests that this ambiguity is part of a broader shift towards technoscience. (shrink)

In the Museum of Science and Technology in San Jose, California, there is a display dedicated to advances in biotechnology. Most prominent in the display is a double helix of telephone books stacked in two staggered spirals from the floor to the ceiling twenty-five feet above. The books are said to represent the current state of our knowledge of the eukaryotic genome: the primary sequences of DNA polynucleotides for the gene products which have been discovered so far in the (...) twenty years since cloning and sequencing the genome became possible. (shrink)

"Databases containing the accumulated genomic data of the research community are growing exponentially. This book contains cutting-edge insights from scholars, bioethicists and legal practitioners who work at the ever-changing intersection of law and bioinformatics"--Page 4 of cover.

Considering public moral attitudes is a hallmark of the anticipatory governance of emerging biotechnologies, such as heritable human genome editing. However, such anticipatory governance often overlooks that future morality is open to change and that future generations may perform different moral assessments on the very biotechnologies we are trying to govern in the present. In this article, we identify an ’anticipatory gap’ that has not been sufficiently addressed in the discussion on the public governance of heritable genome editing, namely, uncertainty (...) about the moral visions of future generations about the emerging applications that we are currently attempting to govern now. This paper motivates the relevance of this anticipatory gap, identifying the challenges it generates and offering various recommendations so that moral uncertainty does not lead to governance paralysis with regard to human germline genome editing. (shrink)

A paper by Andorno and colleagues, recently published in Trends in Biotechnology, condemns support for heritable human genome editing (HHGE) that is claimed to be premature and to have occurred without sufficient public consultation. The general message of the paper is welcome in its emphasis on the importance of gaining broader perspectives on the uses and regulation of HHGE before calls for clinical use are made. However, some problematic arguments for their position lead them to seemingly condemn not only (...) current premature calls for clinical use of HHGE but also any analysis of the ways in which it might be appropriately regulated in the future. (shrink)

Nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences (NBIC) have gradually gained traction in the United States of America (USA), subsequently expanding to Europe, and are now proliferating worldwide. Scientists are trying with more success to remove the causes of death by “repairing” humans, or even by “increasing” their physical and cognitive capacities. NBICs not only can help researchers promote “one health” by improving environmental conditions, human and animal health, but also, they can lead humanity towards transhumanism through eugenics. Thanks to (...) the principle of totality, the intentional modification of the human body for therapeutic purposes through surgery has always been seen as a source of medical progress. But how far can the living human body be modified at will? Gilbert Hottois and Jean-François Mattei have deciphered transhumanism to question its alleged “humanism” and study its impact on our humanity. Today, science has gone further thanks to the possibilities offered by converging NBIC technologies and especially with the advent of human genome editing! The objective of this article is to highlight the hopes and fears of Homo sapiens following the applications of NBICs, and to propose ethical reflections on the invading transhumanist and posthumanist doctrines that tend to become spiritual movements, even religions. A summary study, based on a scientific bibliography, linked to NBICs and including ethical aspects, will present the ethical issues of the convergence of nanotechnologies, biotechnologies, information technologies and cognitive sciences, which could become a springboard for transhumanism and posthumanism. (shrink)

Engineered microbes are of great potential utility in biotechnology and basic research. In principle, a cell can be built from scratch by assembling small molecule sets with auto‐catalytic properties. Alternatively, DNA can be isolated or directly synthesized and molded into a synthetic genome using existing genomic blueprints and molecular biology tools. Activating such a synthetic genome will yield a synthetic cell. Here we examine obstacles associated with this latter approach using a model system whereby a donor genome from H. (...) influenzae is fragmented, and the pieces are then modified and reassembled stepwise in an E. coli host cell. There are obstacles associated with this strategy related to DNA transfer, DNA replication, cross‐talk in gene regulation and compatibility of gene products between donor and host. Encouragingly, analysis of gene expression indicates widespread transcription of H. influenzae genes in E. coli, and analysis of gap locations in H. influenzae and other microbial genome assemblies reveals few genes routinely incompatible with E. coli. In conclusion, rebuilding and booting a genome remains a feasible and pragmatic approach to creating a synthetic microbial cell. BioEssays 29:580–590, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The Cas9 endonuclease is the central component of the Type II CRISPR/Cas system, a prokaryotic adaptive restriction system against invading nucleic acids, such as those originating from bacteriophages and plasmids. Recently, this RNA‐directed DNA endonuclease has been harnessed to target DNA sequences of interest. Here, we review the development of Cas9 as an important tool to not only edit the genomes of a number of different prokaryotic and eukaryotic species, but also as an efficient system for site‐specific transcriptional repression or (...) activation. Additionally, a specific Cas9 protein has been observed to target an RNA substrate, suggesting that Cas9 may have the ability to be programmed to target RNA as well. Cas proteins from other CRISPR/Cas subtypes may also be exploited in this regard. Thus, CRISPR/Cas systems represent an effective and versatile biotechnological tool, which will have significant impact on future advancements in genome engineering. (shrink)

Science and engineering rely on the accumulation and dissemination of knowledge to make discoveries and create new designs. Discovery-driven genome research rests on knowledge passed on via gene annotations. In response to the deluge of sequencing big data, standard annotation practice employs automated procedures that rely on majority rules. We argue this hinders progress through the generation and propagation of errors, leading investigators into blind alleys. More subtly, this inductive process discourages the discovery of novelty, which remains essential in biological (...) research and reflects the nature of biology itself. Annotation systems, rather than being repositories of facts, should be tools that support multiple modes of inference. By combining deduction, induction and abduction, investigators can generate hypotheses when accurate knowledge is extracted from model databases. A key stance is to depart from ‘the sequence tells the structure tells the function’ fallacy, placing function first. We illustrate our approach with examples of critical or unexpected pathways, using MicroScope to demonstrate how tools can be implemented following the principles we advocate. We end with a challenge to the reader. (shrink)

In the last 10 years, we have witnessed a blooming of targeted genome editing systems and applications. The area was revolutionized by the discovery and characterization of the transcription activator‐like effector proteins, which are easier to engineer to target new DNA sequences than the previously available DNA binding templates, zinc fingers and meganucleases. Recently, the area experimented a quantum leap because of the introduction of the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)‐associated protein (Cas) system (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic (...) sequence). This ribonucleoprotein complex protects bacteria from invading DNAs, and it was adapted to be used in genome editing. The CRISPR ribonucleic acid (RNA) molecule guides to the specific DNA site the Cas9 nuclease to cleave the DNA target. Two years and more than 1000 publications later, the CRISPR‐Cas system has become the main tool for genome editing in many laboratories. Currently the targeted genome editing technology has been used in many fields and may be a possible approach for human gene therapy. Furthermore, it can also be used to modifying the genomes of model organisms for studying human pathways or to improve key organisms for biotechnological applications, such as plants, livestock genome as well as yeasts and bacterial strains. (shrink)

From 1900 onwards, scientists and novelists have explored the contours of a future society based on the use of “anthropotechnologies” (techniques applicable to human beings for the purpose of performance enhancement ranging from training and education to genome-based biotechnologies). Gradually but steadily, the technologies involved migrated from (science) fiction into scholarly publications, and from “utopia” (or “dystopia”) into science. Building on seminal ideas borrowed from Nietzsche, Peter Sloterdijk has outlined the challenges inherent in this development. Since time immemorial, and at (...) least since the days of Plato’s Academy, human beings have been interested in possibilities for (physical or mental) performance enhancement. We are constantly trying to improve ourselves, both collectively and individually, for better or for worse. At present, however, new genomics-based technologies are opening up new avenues for self-amelioration. Developments in research facilities using animal models may to a certain extent be seen as expeditions into our own future. Are we able to address the bioethical and biopolitical issues awaiting us? After analyzing and assessing Sloterdijk’s views, attention will shift to a concrete domain of application, namely sport genomics. For various reasons, top athletes are likely to play the role of genomics pioneers by using personalized genomics information to adjust diet, life-style, training schedules and doping intake to the strengths and weaknesses of their personalized genome information. Thus, sport genomics may be regarded as a test bed where the contours of genomics-based self-management are tried out. (shrink)

This focus issue considers the normative implications of the recent emergence in genome editing technology known as CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) or CRISPR‐associated protein 9. Originally discovered in the adaptive immune systems of bacteria and archaea, CRISPR enables researchers to make efficient and site‐specific modifications to the genomes of cells and organisms. More accessible, precise, and economic than previous gene editing technologies, CRISPR holds the promise of not only transforming the fields of genetics, agriculture, and human medicine, (...) but also heralding a new era of democratized biotechnology. However, the speed with which developments in the field have progressed threatens to overwhelm our normative sensibilities about the long‐term practical and ethical implications. The contributors to this focus issue attempt to think through some of the more salient moral and practical consequences of CRISPR in the context of religious ethics, particularly as they relate to themes of autonomy, human flourishing, social justice, and the ethics of enhancement. (shrink)

Whether “biomimetic” or “bioinspired,” the projects of bioengineering tend to refer their devices or inventions to the biological systems that provide models or originals for detachable functionalities. And yet, they do not satisfy the picturing relation of original and copy. They are mimetic or imitative in the sense of reenacting a function in a different setting with its own principles of composition or its own parameters that select for salience. The taking up of salient features for the purposes of producing (...) a performance of functionality results not in the copy of an original but in its parody. Parodies are not judged for their veracity but for their effectiveness. They have a heuristic value in the context of design and for knowing the world through making and building. In somewhat experimental fashion, this paper seeks to develop a vocabulary for the parodistic qualities of Synthetic Biology, genome editing, or other bioengineering practices. In order to do so, it introduces categories from aesthetics to qualify modeling relations, one of these categories being the notion of “parody” itself. (shrink)

This paper argues that in modern (agro)biotechnology, (un)naturalness as an argument contributed to a stalemate in public debate about innovative technologies. Naturalness in this is often placed opposite to human disruption. It also often serves as a label that shapes moral acceptance or rejection of agricultural innovative technologies. The cause of this lies in the use of nature as a closed, static reference to naturalness, while in fact “nature” is an open and dynamic concept with many different meanings. We (...) propose an approach for a dynamic framework that permits an integrative use of naturalness in debate, by connecting three sorts of meaning that return regularly in the arguments brought forward in debate; cultural, technological, and ecological. We present these as aspects of nature that are always present in the argument of naturalness. The approach proposes a dynamic relation between these aspects, formed by gradients of naturalness, which in turn are related to ethical concerns. In this way we come to an overview that makes it possible to give individual arguments a relative place and that does justice to the temporality of the concept of nature and the underlying ethical concerns stakeholders have in respect to innovation in agriculture. (shrink)

Abstract This paper argues that in modern (agro)biotechnology, (un)naturalness as an argument contributed to a stalemate in public debate about innovative technologies. Naturalness in this is often placed opposite to human disruption. It also often serves as a label that shapes moral acceptance or rejection of agricultural innovative technologies. The cause of this lies in the use of nature as a closed, static reference to naturalness, while in fact “nature” is an open and dynamic concept with many different meanings. (...) We propose an approach for a dynamic framework that permits an integrative use of naturalness in debate, by connecting three sorts of meaning that return regularly in the arguments brought forward in debate; cultural, technological, and ecological. We present these as aspects of nature that are always present in the argument of naturalness. The approach proposes a dynamic relation between these aspects, formed by gradients of naturalness, which in turn are related to ethical concerns. In this way we come to an overview that makes it possible to give individual arguments a relative place and that does justice to the temporality of the concept of nature and the underlying ethical concerns stakeholders have in respect to innovation in agriculture. Content Type Journal Article Category Articles Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10806-011-9359-6 Authors P. F. Van Haperen, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands B. Gremmen, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands J. Jacobs, Wageningen University and Research Centre, META, Hollandseweg 1, 6707 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands Journal Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics Online ISSN 1573-322X Print ISSN 1187-7863. (shrink)

Synthetic biologists design and engineer organisms for a better and more sustainable future. While the manifold prospects are encouraging, concerns about the uncertain risks of genome editing affect public opinion as well as local regulations. As a consequence, biosafety and associated concepts, such as the Safe-by-design framework and genetic safeguard technologies, have gained notoriety and occupy a central position in the conversation about genetically modified organisms. Yet, as regulatory interest and academic research in genetic safeguard technologies advance, the implementation in (...) industrial biotechnology, a sector that is already employing engineered microorganisms, lags behind. The main goal of this work is to explore the utilization of genetic safeguard technologies for designing biosafety in industrial biotechnology. Based on our results, we posit that biosafety is a case of a changing value, by means of further specification of how to realize biosafety. Our investigation is inspired by the Value Sensitive Design framework, to investigate scientific and technological choices in their appropriate social context. Our findings discuss stakeholder norms for biosafety, reasonings about genetic safeguards, and how these impact the practice of designing for biosafety. We show that tensions between stakeholders occur at the level of norms, and that prior stakeholder alignment is crucial for value specification to happen in practice. Finally, we elaborate in different reasonings about genetic safeguards for biosafety and conclude that, in absence of a common multi-stakeholder effort, the differences in informal biosafety norms and the disparity in biosafety thinking could end up leading to design requirements for compliance instead of for safety. (shrink)

A team of US researchers recently reported the design, assembly and in vivo functionality of a synthetic chromosome III (SynIII) for the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The synthetic chromosome was assembled bottom‐up from DNA oligomers by teams of students working over several years with researchers as the first part of an international synthetic yeast genome project. Embedded into the sequence of the synthetic chromosome are multiple design changes that include a novel in‐built recombination scheme that can be induced to catalyse intra‐chromosomal (...) rearrangements in a variety of different conditions. This system, along with the other synthetic sequence changes, is intended to aid researchers develop a deeper understanding of how genomes function and find new ways to exploit yeast in future biotechnologies. The landmark of the first synthesised designer eukaryote chromosome, and the power of its massively parallel recombination system, provide new perspectives on the future of synthetic biology and genome research. (shrink)

Recent developments in biotechnology and genetic research are raising complex ethical questions concerning the legitimate scope and limits of genetic intervention. As we begin to contemplate the possibility of intervening in the human genome to prevent diseases, we cannot help but feel that the human species might soon be able to take its biological evolution in its own hands. 'Playing God' is the metaphor commonly used for this self-transformation of the species, which, it seems, might soon be within our (...) grasp. In this important new book, Jurgen Habermas - the most influential philosopher and social thinker in Germany today - takes up the question of genetic engineering and its ethical implications and subjects it to careful philosophical scrutiny. His analysis is guided by the view that genetic manipulation is bound up with the identity and self-understanding of the species. We cannot rule out the possibility that knowledge of one's own hereditary factors may prove to be restrictive for the choice of an individual's way of life and may undermine the symmetrical relations between free and equal human beings. In the concluding chapter - which was delivered as a lecture on receiving the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade for 2001 - Habermas broadens the discussion to examine the tension between science and religion in the modern world, a tension which exploded, with such tragic violence, on September 11th. (shrink)