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Introduction
The experience, last years iGEM mediated us, clearly shows that students are willing to develop useful applications. They provided medical, environmental or mathematical/computational applications, with no reason to hide themselves from other scientific projects. The fact that students already deal with real scientific projects should expand their sense of responsibility. Normally universities provide basic knowledge and practical skills, but the opportunity to establish own scientific projects is rare. On the one hand enabling students to develop own projects is reasonable, on the other hand a safety problem could occur if this trust is betrayed.
Over the past years, progress in science and technology led to totally new possibilities in the field of synthetic biology. New technologies require new discussions, rules and ethical standarts. Therefore it is reasonable to discuss this within the scope of iGEM, in order that students already deal with the safety and responsible handling of their projects. Especially the progress of de novo gene synthesis, sequencing technologies and bioinformatics are the fundamentals for the rapid development of synthetic biology. Creating genes is a powerful tool given into the hand of students.
 Safety and ethical issues concerning synthetic biology
Bioengineers are often regarded as egomaniac, god-playing “Frankensteins”, bothering animals and plants. What is true about this one-sided perspective?
Bioengineers certainly walk the thin line between manipulating life and creating life. Especially, uniqueness of living as part of the human self image confronts with the manipulation and creation of life. Creation of life was only related to god for ages while nowadays education and science change the picture rapidly, leading to a controversial discussion based on a mixture of fear, ignorance and well grounded critique.
In times of unlimited communication and information access, nearly everybody has the possibility to get DNA sequences from pathogenic organisms. It has never before been so easy to create biological weapons, for example Viruses. Two experiments have illustrated the possibilities of abuse by the technique of synthetic biology. In 2002, scientists succeeded in rebuilding a Polio Virus by ordering synthetic DNA from commercial companies and assembled the Virus in their laboratory. Even more spectacular is an attempt by American scientists in 2005. They had successfully tried to reconstruct the genetic information of the flu virus responsible for the highly contagious Spanish flu. The Virus was extinct, but its RNA could be isolated from the tissue of deceased, sequenced and finally the original virus was synthesized.
Information on the DNA or RNA of pathogenic organisms may be received from different databases and scientific publications. Synthetic sequences can be ordered from specialized companies, for menageable prices. Finally, these sequences could be assembled to highly effective pathogens.
This scenario illustrates how difficult it is to build effective barriers. Because those properties of the new science, which are characterizing and pushing it ahead, are properties simplifying the abuse. It is undoubtedly important, to control dangerous products of synthetic biology and consistently apply regulations. The case of synthetic biology shows that the problem of technical abuse is not solved by decreasing technical possibilities, but rather that motivations and reasons, to perpetrate abuses, should be understood and eliminated.
Also the effects of synthetic organisms on the environment and ecosystems must be considered. For the people there are risks, where synthetic organism from the environment or as part of the food chain were assimilated or where synthetic organisms come into contact with humans for medical purposes. For the environment any use of synthetic life outside the lab means a risk, because a mixture of natural and artificial gene pool can occur.
There are several projects concerning the unpredictability of the proliferation from synthetic organisms. Among other
things there is an attempt to provide these organisms with a gene for automatic self destruction in case of uncontrolled proliferation.
However, creating life means to create something that has the ability to reproduce and mutate itself and therefore gains autonomy.
Outlook
Considering the fact that about 672.910.000 people are living on earth and the number is rising, mankind will more and more face the circumstance to strike new path. Fast propagating diseases, malnutrition, environmental pollution and the understanding of biological systems are great upcoming challenges. Synthetic biology approaches promise to compete some of these problems. Handled with responsibility, there will be endless possibilities (understanding and treatment of diseases, yield increase of plants, bio-fuel generating bacteria and so on).
To experience the full potential of synthetic biology, their securety needs to be guaranteed.
References
- Jeronimo Cello, Aniko V. Paul, Eckard Wimmer (2002): Chemical Synthesis of Poliovirus cDNA: Generation of Infectious Virus in the Absence of Natural Template, in Science Vol. 297. no. 5583, pp. 1016 - 1018
- Terrence M. Tumpey, Christopher F. Basler, Patricia V. Aguilar, Hui Zeng, Alicia Solórzano, David E. Swayne, Nancy J. Cox, Jacqueline M. Katz, Jeffery K. Taubenberger, Peter Palese, Adolfo García-Sastre (2005):Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus, in Science 310 (5745), 77-80
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