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En provenance du cours de Johns Hopkins University

Engineering Life: Synbio, Bioethics & Public Policy

14 notes

Johns Hopkins University

Engineering Life: Synbio, Bioethics & Public Policy

14 notes

Synbio is a diverse field with diverse applications, and the different contexts (e.g., gain-of-function research, biofuels) raise different ethical and governance challenges. The objective of this course is to increase learners’ awareness and understanding of ethical and policy/governance issues that arise in the design, conduct and application of synthetic biology. The course will begin with a short history of recombinant DNA technology and how governance of that science developed and evolved, and progress through a series of areas of application of synbio. Content will be presented in many forms, including not only reading and lectures, but also recorded and live interviews and discussions with scientists, ethicists and policy makers. Learners will have the opportunity to think, write and talk about the issues and challenges in their own work and in real-life case examples. A final project will engage students in the development of governance models for synbio.

À partir de la leçon

Biofuels

This week, we’ll learn about biofuels, the complex task of balancing the many ethical issues they raise, and the role of synthetic biology in biofuels development. The work of the week includes lecture videos, one outside video, readings, and an interview with Deborah Scott about biofuels governance. The week will conclude with a quiz.

Week 3 Introduction1:21

Applications5:56

Ethical Issues Raised by SynBio-based Biofuels8:40

Interview: Deborah Scott, PhD, JD (Part 1)24:08

Interview: Deborah Scott, PhD, JD (Part 2)14:53

Rencontrer les enseignants

Debra JH Mathews, PhD, MA
Assistant Director for Science Programs
Berman Institute of Bioethics

[MUSIC]

In this video, we're going to just very quickly run through a biofuels case study.

So imagine that there is a region that has historically relied on first

generation biofuels such as palm oil.

Palm oil, of course, is used.

Palm oil, of course, is also used in foods.

So it evokes the food versus fuel debate and is grown on land,

it could be used to generate other food crops.

The region is interested in reducing its use of palm oil as a biofuel and

as such, in a new technology, similar to that described by

Steen et al in your readings, in which an engineered E coli can

produce FAEEs using glucose as the only carbon source.

But there's now a tremendous demand for glucose.

So, in thinking about this case study,

let's start with the glucose.

So, where is that glucose going to come from?

So, it could, for example, come from sugar cane.

But then that doesn't really solve the problem of trying to get away from

the first generation biofuels or the food versus fuel debate.

Would existing food crops be displaced to develop land for glucose production?

If that land isn't available or

the appropriate environment isn't available

locally to produce, for example sugar cane or

another glucose source that production could go elsewhere.

But this brings up an existing concern about the use of land and

resources in the global south to produce

biofuels to serve demand in the global north and

brings up issues associated with,

for example, environmental justice,

which we will come back to in later videos.

If the land necessary to produce whatever crop is going

to give you the glucose isn't existing arable land,

would wild lands be cleared to make that room?

And if so, what would the impacts of that

be on biodiversity on the livelihoods of

anyone who might use those wild lands for

other purposes, etc?

Who are the stakeholders to this decision, right?

So the farmers who would be either in the global,

or in this region or elsewhere,

who would own that land on which the crop is being produced to generate the glucose

to serve, to develop the new biofuel?

What would the conditions of that farm agreement be?

What are the distributions of risks and benefits of the development of this

biofuel between the farmers, for example, and the consumers of the fuel?

And what are the overall economic and environmental benefits and risks?

And again, how are those distributed?

So in thinking about a case like this,

you want to think about not just the issues of cost and

efficiency and the environmental impact of the,

Burning of that fuel but of all of the stakeholders

who will be impacted by the development,

the life cycle of that biofuel from production through use.

And then what are the interests and concerns of those stakeholders?

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