Synthetic Biology - Brutes or Angels: Human Possibility in the Age of Biotechnology - page 254

hormone); and since the 1980s we have transferred genes between species
to produce transgenic plants and animals for agriculture, medical pur-
poses, and new materials. examples include corn and bean plants with
bacterial genes for natural pesticides, rice with daffodil genes for bet-
ter nutrition, pigs with human genes that make pig organs compatible for
transplantation into humans, and goats with a spider gene for a protein that
forms especially strong fibers, harvestable from the goats' milk. how does
synthetic biology differ from genetic manipulations like these?
How Synthetic Biology Differs from Genetic Engineering
some commentators on biotechnology claim that synthetic biology and ge-
netic engineering are basically the same and that the regulations already in
place for genetic engineering are sufficient for synthetic biology (Parens,
Johnston, and moses 2008). 2 others refer to synthetic biology as “genetic
engineering on steroids” or “extreme genetic engineering” to emphasize a
qualitative difference between the two technologies (eTC Group 2007). 3
in this section we compare the two technologies, and the reader is invited
to decide whether synthetic biology deserves to be in a scientific or ethical
category by itself.
Genetic engineering and synthetic biology are similar in that both pro-
duce organisms with genomes different from the genomes made by nature.
on the other hand, the two technologies differ in at least three ways: (1)
the character of the life forms produced, (2) the underlying objectives of
the technologies, and (3) the views of nature reflected and advanced by the
technologies.
life forms constructed by synthetic biology differ from those fashioned
by genetic engineering. Genetic engineers tinker with the genetic mate-
rial of organisms but do not fundamentally change the organisms them-
selves. Usually, the character of a genetically engineered organism differs
from its non-engineered counterpart by just a single trait. for example, a
corn plant given bacterial genes to render it resistant to insect pests is still
a corn plant and still does corny things such as tassel, produce pollen, and
develop ears of corn. By contrast, synthetic biology aims to create brand-