My very first column published in May 2006 was called Synthetic Biology 2.0, named after the 2006 conference of the synthetic biology community. I wrote the following year about the Synthetic Biology Conference 3.0 that took place at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland, in June 2007.  This provided an opportunity to reflect on what happened between the two conferences. I would like to reflect now on the Synthetic Biology  4.0 conference that took place on October 10-12, 2008 at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

According to the conference webpage, “The mission of Synthetic Biology 4.0 is to bring together researchers who are working to:

• design and build biological parts, devices and integrated biological systems
• develop technologies that enable such work
• place this scientific and engineering research within its current and future social context”

The goal of placing scientific and engineering research in synthetic biology in its “current and future social context” is interesting. What does that mean, and what do the synthetic biology researchers see as the current and future social context?

Tidbits from the conference agenda include:  “Cosmetic Production in Escherichia coli,” “Can We Build Biological Systems in Mammalian Cells with Predictable Properties?”, “Self-Sustainable Biosolar Cells Based on Bacterial Photosynthesis and Respiration.” “Engineering Living Systems for Nanotechnology,” “Chemical Synthetic Biology,” Synthetic Biology and the Pharmaceutical Industry” (by Jeff Way of Merck Serano), “Nanomedicine,” “Live Bacteria HIV Therapy.” “Rice Engineering,” and “Limits for Life on Earth.”

Biofuel was covered in many presentations, which does not come as a surprise.

A few bloggers have already written about the conference. In Synthetic Biology 4.0 – Not so live blog, part 1, Rob Carlson states: “At just over 600 attendees, SB 4.0 is more than twice as big as even 3.0, with just under half the roster from Asia.” He highlights the desktop gene printer as technically feasible, and believes that a prototype could be built within eight weeks. He also draws attention to other work presented at the meeting, including work on SARS and the artificial chromosome. More write-ups are to come in a few days.

Andrew Maynard wrote about the conference on his blog sharing his sense that “threaded through everything is this feeling of a grass-roots movement that truly believes that it can change the world from the bottom up.”  

There are short references to the conference on Jonathan Cline’s 88 Proof Synth Bio Blog.

Surprisingly, the Nature blog and molecular system biology blog, which provided day-by-day coverage last year, have published nothing so far this year. Readers may want to monitor them for future references.

The NGO ETC Group hosted a panel on the Global Societal Impacts of Synthetic Biology in this year’s conference. It wrote about the conference on its blog, reflecting on what is different:

“In some ways it’s a far cry from two years ago when civil society was turned away from the same Syn Bio confab meeting in California. On that occasion we had to resort to an open letter to prevent a disastrous self governance proposal going ahead. Those two years have changed nothing and changed everything. For the synthetic biology community themselves an unprecedented influx of commercial interest and funding has transformed Syn Bio into the new ‘IT’ industry for investors (Synvestors?). BP, Shell, General Motors, Du Pont, Chevron, Cargill, ADM, Marathon Oil and Goodyear are among the Fortune 500 firms now palling up with synthetic biology firms. BP even sunk 600 million dollars buying up access to University of California Berkely’s Syn Bio labs while also buying into Craig Venter’s Synthetic Genomics Inc and the trickle of oil company executives to head up Syn Bio start ups is beginning to look like a small flood”..... “At the same time unfortunately nothing has changed when it comes to governance. Despite a smattering of reports, meaningful progress on establishing accountable oversight of Synthetic Biology has stalled and doesn’t look likely to start moving again any time soon. The Syn Bio express is steaming ahead with corporations firmly in the driving seat and no limits or terms and conditions set by society.”

The Choice is Yours

The reader can refer to my previous columns on Synbio. I think my judgement from last year still holds. Synbio has progressed rapidly; however, consideration of its social implications has moved at a much slower pace.

I wondered last year whether international bodies would provide guidance. This has not happened, with the exception of a talk by Piers Millet of the United Nations, Geneva on “Why Think about Biological Security?”

It will be interesting to see what happens between now and Synthetic Biology 5.0. The international Genetic Engineering Machine (iGEM) Competition (I wrote about it last year) is seen as an essential part of the synthetic biology movement. The next event will be held in November 2008, and some of my students will present work on ethical, environmental, economic, legal, and social issues related to synthetic biology (see their survey here). It’s the first time an iGEM team has focused exclusively on these issues. How the issues are acted on in the end is another matter. I will write about iGEM 2008 after the event.   

Some progress is being made in addressing  social, ethical, environmental, economic and legal issues, but this needs to be done in a globally consistent fashion given the rapid globalization and broadening of synthetic biology.

Gregor Wolbring is an ability governance, science and technology governance, disability studies and health policy scholar. He is an Assistant Professor at the University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Community Health Sciences, Program in Disability Studies and Community Rehabilitation. He is a member of the Center for Nanotechnology and Society at Arizona State University; Part Time Professor at Faculty of Law, University of Ottawa, Canada; Adjunct Faculty, Critical Disability Studies, York University, Toronto, Canada; Member CAC/ISO - Canadian Advisory Committees for the International Organization for Standardization section TC229 Nanotechnologies; Member of the Review Board for the journal Review in Disability Studies; Member of the International Editorial Advisory Board for the journal Studies in Ethics, Law and Technology; Chair of the Bioethics Taskforce of Disabled People's International; and former Member of the Executive of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (2003-2007 maximum terms served). He publishes the Bioethics, Culture and Disability website, authors a weblog on NBICS and its social implications and is a regular contributor to the What Sorts of People blog.

© Gregor Wolbring, All Rights Reserved, 2008. Please contact the author for permission to reprint.