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21 May 2010

Professor Joyce Tait comments on the Venter Breakthrough for the


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:

The long-promised synthetic cell is finally here and is generating the inevitable flurry of
press interest, ranging from unrealistic hype (much of it from the Venter team themselves) to
apocalyptic scenarios - the "Pandora's box moment" to quote the ETC Group, and no doubt
the European NGOs will be quick to follow with condemnation.

In reality, I think most synthetic biologists would say that this is a major, and a long-
expected breakthrough, but it is much too early to tell whether this approach or some other
will lead to the promised benefits, for example in developing vaccines and bio-fuels.

As to the risks, it is indeed important to guard against adverse impacts on people and the
environment and we should be vigilant on this score. However, the EU's approach to
precaution in the context of GM crops has been widely discredited as a risk governance
mechanism, although not as an approach to political management of public opinion. It
would be nice if we Europeans could have a more balanced approach to this new generation
of biotechnology developments and find a smarter way of governing risk that delivers an
acceptable level of safety without jeopardising the eventual benefits which today we can
only guess at.

No doubt we will hear much in the coming weeks about the potential terrorist threats that
could come from synthetic biology developments. This has already been the topic of much
discussion and analysis for several years. The consensus so far is that terrorist activity of this
nature is highly unlikely - there are far easier ways to create chaos. However, given our
inability to control terrorist activities by regulatory means, our best defence is to keep our
position at the forefront of scientific developments, including our ability to counter any
future terrorist actions.

Prof. Joyce Tait,


ESRC Innogen Centre,
University of Edinburgh,
Old Surgeons Hall,
High School Yards,
Edinburgh EH1 1LZ
www.genomicsnetwork.ac.uk/innogen.ac.uk
Check out the Innogen Blog at http://innogencentre.blogspot.com/

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