Aggregated News
Environmental campaigners are urging developing countries to include the rapidly advancing science of synthetic biology — the building of new organisms using genes as biological 'bricks' — in their biosafety legislation for genetically modified (GM) crops.
They are concerned that synthetic biology products based on novel organisms could be developed, and commercialised, before there is regulation and understanding of their environmental and societal impacts.
With many countries in the midst of legislating for the arrival of GM crops, now is the time to include frameworks for dealing with synthetic organisms as well, according to Eric Hoffman, a biotechnology expert at Friends of the Earth (FoE), the environmental campaigning organisation.
His comments came after FoE sent a letter, signed by 58 organisations from 22 countries, to the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, complaining that its recent report on synthetic biology had proposed inadequate measures for controlling the technology and was failing to exercise the 'precautionary principle'.
The letter, dated 16 December 2010, calls for a moratorium on the production and commercial release of synthetic organisms, but it...
They are concerned that synthetic biology products based on novel organisms could be developed, and commercialised, before there is regulation and understanding of their environmental and societal impacts.
With many countries in the midst of legislating for the arrival of GM crops, now is the time to include frameworks for dealing with synthetic organisms as well, according to Eric Hoffman, a biotechnology expert at Friends of the Earth (FoE), the environmental campaigning organisation.
His comments came after FoE sent a letter, signed by 58 organisations from 22 countries, to the US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, complaining that its recent report on synthetic biology had proposed inadequate measures for controlling the technology and was failing to exercise the 'precautionary principle'.
The letter, dated 16 December 2010, calls for a moratorium on the production and commercial release of synthetic organisms, but it...