Craig Venter on the ethics of creating synthetic organisms
Over at Bloggingheads.tv Carl Zimmer interviewed Craig Venter recently about a wide range of topics, from personal genome sequencing to Venter's work on synthetic biology. Venter tells Zimmer that the reports a few months back that his team was right on the verge of creating a synthetic microbe were wrong, stating flatly, "We don't have a synthetic organism." He did say he's "confident" it could happen in the next "several months." Zimmer also asked Venter about the ethics of creating synthetic life (that link should play the relevant 4 minute portion of the video -- it starts at 40:05). Venter's answer is interesting in that he says his team takes the ethical questions "extremely seriously," but he also sidesteps a bit by comparing the potential problem of a synthetic pathogen to that of naturally emerging diseases. "If you're dying from a virus I don't think it matters a whole lot whether it's man-made or occurring because of overpopulation and unhealthy conditions," Venter says and then he shifts the conversation toward the lack of funding for research into new antivirals and antibiotics.
-Greg Dahlmann
Earlier on blog.bioethics.net:
+ What is Craig Venter up to now?
+ Venter team claims to have created a synthetic chromosome
screen grab from bloggingheads.tv
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A couple days after we spoke, Venter and co-authors released a big report on possible strategies to deal with the ethical issues of synthetic biology. They don't actually pick one, though. Here's the site where you can get the report: http://www.jcvi.org/research/synthetic-genomics-report/
- by Carl Zimmer on Nov 8, 2007 at 12:46 PM | link
So this is do-it-first-worry-about-ethics-later science?
- by emily on Nov 8, 2007 at 2:20 PM | link
Emily: Venter says in the linked clip that his team started thinking about some of the ethical questions before they started the experiments. And the report that Carl mentions above in the comments claims to be an almost two year long effort. So it appears there was at least some prior consideration.
- by Greg on Nov 8, 2007 at 2:34 PM | link
It just seems to me, as an animal researcher, that at least two types of ethical consideration should be done fully and in advance, a risk analysis and a cost:benefit justification. Or does inventing a synthetic life form require less prior ethical consideration than routine blood drawing from a mouse?
- by emily on Nov 8, 2007 at 3:53 PM | link
My favorite quote of Venter's is: "If you're dying from a virus, I don't think it matters a whole lot whether it is man-made or occurring because of overpopulation and other unhealthy conditions." Of course it matters! At least natural viruses are not specifically designed as bioterror weapons. SynBio allows for the creation of entirely new life forms (including alternative forms of DNA) which have the potential to target and destroy like no other naturally existing form of life on Earth.
For more, fun see Venter's interview on the Colbert Report where he admits that he could be creating a mutant race that will destroy the world.
- by Gillian on Nov 8, 2007 at 5:37 PM | link
There is also a big ethics issue in this if he tries to patent his creation. Is it considered an invention that you can patent, or is it still wrong to patent it because it is a living thing.
- by Brenen on Nov 12, 2007 at 2:34 PM | link
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v414/n6861/full/414241c0.html
- by emily on Nov 13, 2007 at 9:09 AM | link
@Gillian
Yes some one could, but it would, even with his technologies potential, take years of research/planning, millions in funding, and a large team. It's called biohacking the means by which someone could use recombinatorial genomics to exploit a persons natural biology for good or ill, or the study of how bacteria, prions, fungi, or amoebas already accomplish this on a chemical level. Fortunately the level of complexity needed to accomplish this is rather large, and the natural fauna of organisms that specialize in human prey is small, very, very small in comparison to the actual diversity in the fauna. Creating an efficient producer of hydrogen in a short time frame, for example, is not on par at all with creating Human killing bacterium which at least in the natural fauna are orders of a magnitude greater in complexity then what he's talking about creating.
Which would bring one to the economic feasibility arguments and it basically goes like this. There are well over 10,000 fridges around the world with hoof and mouth disease as we speak, there are a large amount of fridges containing small pox, influenzas, and hundreds of other epidemic level, civilization crashing, bacteria and viruses. In fact the U.S. government and the Russian government spent a lot of time breeding better strains of bacteria like TB just for warfare. The potential to end all civilization is currently already out there and in the hands of many governments across the world, some of which we know consult with terrorists and other not so trust worthy organizations. So why would one develop a brand of new virulence when for a much, much lower cost they could get one off the current black market to perform the same task. Basically the potential to end civilization as we know it is already prevalent, and the access to those fridges is already abundant, but what is not is the potential to stop one of the epidemics once its starts and that is exactly what the other side of Venter's coin brings to the table along with many other incredible things.
- by John on Jun 6, 2008 at 6:13 PM | link