Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
include biofuels produced by microbial factories, a healthier environment
from designer microbes that remove carbon dioxide from the air or inacti-
vate harmful pollutants in the water and soil, and safer public places from
explosive-detecting organisms. But as synthetic biology begins generating
personalized medicine, enhancements for health or cognition, and other
benefits unimaginable to us today, the distributive justice issue will be-
come correspondingly more difficult.
The flip side of distributive justice is the question of who may be put
at risk by certain outcomes of synthetic biology. Without proper regula-
tions and safeguards, synthetic biology could yield organisms dangerous or
deadly for the biosphere and all of humanity. of course, unintended harm
is also a risk with other biotechnologies, including genetic engineering and
nanotechnology.
Reshaping life.
Assisted reproduction and preimplantation/prenatal ge-
netic diagnosis for gender or trait selection, neuroenhancement, surgical
enhancement, and genetic engineering all involve the direct or indirect
reshaping of living things. But among these, only germ-line genetic en-
gineering reshapes life in a way that is passed on to future generations, a
feature it shares with synthetic biology. Any argument that sets synthetic
biology apart from germ-line genetic engineering as bringing up a brand-
new ethical issue must show that these two technologies are fundamentally
different. We examined such differences earlier and saw that synthetic bi-
ology differs from germ-line genetic engineering in three ways: the nature
of the life forms generated, the technologies' underlying objectives, and
the views of nature reflected and advanced by the technologies. These dif-
ferences alone may not be enough to justify the development of a special
ethics for synthetic biology, but additional factors may tip one's thinking
in favor of a new subdiscipline of bioethics devoted to synthetic biology.
Is a Synthetic Biology Ethic Needed?
if one draws no qualitative distinctions between synthesizing brand-new
genes, genomes, or cells (synthetic biology) and simply rearranging the
genes that nature has already created (genetic engineering), synthetic bi-
ology raises no ethical issues not already addressed for the germ-line ge-
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