Ethics in the Life Sciences – Expert reports by the DRZE; Volume 20
Dirk Lanzerath / Bernd Giese / Liv Jaeckel

Under the responsibility of the German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences
published by Dieter Sturma and Dirk Lanzerath

Synthetic Biology is a new research and application area in molecular biology that shares methods and procedures with genetic engineering. In contrast to genetic engineering, which introduces individual genes into already existing organisms, Synthetic Biology aims to create new organic components or even organisms and to master them technically.

The research and development field of Synthetic Biology is currently still characterized by great uncertainty. However, a novel transdisciplinarity between biosciences, engineering sciences and bioinformatics can be identified as a largely shared basis, which pursues the goal of constructing artificial systems based on biological or biochemical elements. Through the formative intervention in the living, a new interface between inanimate and animate matter seems to emerge, which in the products of Synthetic Biology blurs supposedly clear boundaries between the natural and the artificial, opens up a further instrumental view of the living, and beyond that changes the position of humans as actors and objects of Synthetic Biology.

The progress report structures the debate on Synthetic Biology from a scientific, legal and ethical perspective. General innovation and risk potentials of Synthetic Biology are discussed as well as specific critical application contexts, but also corresponding strategies and regulations for risk reduction. In addition, natural-philosophical classifications of Synthetic Biology and normative discourses on how to deal with it in asocially acceptable way are reflected upon.

DOI: 10.23769/vka-2020-49053   open access

ISBN: 978-3-495-49053-2

Publisher: Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg

Year of publication: 2020

Pages: 155

Language: German

Price: 19,- € (paperback)