Human Practices: Overview

Synthetic biology (SB) is a quickly developing branch of biotechnology with many promising benefits for human society. As a consequence of this development, awareness among the public increases. Past debates on genetic engineering suggest that in order to omit exaggerated hopes and fears, scientists should adopt an open approach towards the public. The whole concept of involving the public has only been around for the past three decades; it was in the early 1980s that scientists and policy makers began to acknowledge that public engagement could be beneficial to both science and society. This is particularly the case with developments in the field of biotechnology because they come with both high expectations for society as well as concerns about risks, privacy, sustainability and commercialization.

Also, involvement of relevant stakeholders is required to enable a flexible way to deal with upcoming problems. Two approaches that have this involvement of stakeholders in the shaping and execution of research and development in common are Constructive Technology Assessment (CTA) and Midstream Modulation (MM). The main difference between these two strategies is that in MM societal and contextual issues are denoted via a social scientist, whether in CTA the researchers themselves are more directly involving stakeholders.

Based on these theories, we designed a new approach in human practices specifically for iGEM projects, which can be adopted by each future iGEM team. In practice, this approach embraces the involvement of experts from various relevant disciplines to share their knowledge and opinions on the technical, safety, ethical, social and legal issues early in the developmental phase of an iGEM project. This approach will help you guide and develop your project into a product that will have maximal positive impact and will pass through minimal legislative and societal hindrance.

We named this approach the Interactive iGEM research approach. In the Method section it is further explained. Curious on how we applied this approach to our project, the Cellular Logbook? Check the Results section. In Conclusion, you can see how we benefitted from this approach.

“Modern science & technology takes place against a wider background of social values and ethical judgments”. (Weldon, 2004) “It is important to address ethical and safety concerns, and to address potential or perceived risks of synthetic biology from the very beginning, so that future development work can be done in conditions of public trust.“ (European commission, Report of a NEST High-Level Expert Group, 2005)