We receive the following guest post by Brian Bishop on the issues of synthetic biology:
Last week, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues convened a conference to explore the subject of synthetic biology. President Barack Obama, aware of the news from the lab of Craig Venter, requested that his commission study the technical, legal, social and ethical issues surrounding the topic, and to complete a report not more than six months from May 2010.
The proceedings went well. In the morning of July 8th they heard testimonies from Craig Venter, George Church, Drew Endy and Rob Carlson. Later, they heard on current regulation and industrial standards in biotechnology. Overall the vibe was generally positive, and hopefully the commission will go forward with its thoughts on incentives.
This presents an interesting opportunity for the human enhancement community. Synthetic biologies are an increasingly democritized technology, spread about the world from academia, industrial labs and in some cases do-it-yourself garage biohacking. Because of my involvement in the DIYbio community, I have suggested we organize to come up with a small pitch, either an email, presentation, or some other form of communication, to indicate to the commission our interest in cooperation and helping to see that we live in a healthy society, free from disease and constraints on innovation.
As a community, those of us interested in human enhancement have an opportunity to step forward and organize our thoughts- even if they amount to only a single sentence or viewpoint that we would like to submit for consideration. I am confident that our views will be heard and that meetings can be arranged to demo our hobbyist technologies as well as more critical possibilities. I invite you to follow-up with me and I can further direct you into the process.
