Synthetic biology is a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field of science and engineering that aims to redesign living systems through reprogramming genetic information. The field has catalysed global debate among policymakers and publics. Here we describe how synthetic biology relates to these international deliberations, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).<\/p>\n
Synthetic biology or engineering biology is a fast-moving field that embraces and drives state-of-the-art technologies for designing and reconstructing livings systems at different scales, primarily by reprogramming cellular genetic information. As such, the field has catalysed global debate among the wider circles of legislative policymakers, including multiple international conventions, treaties, and protocols. Various international treaties and organisations are currently examining the impacts of synthetic biology and engineered gene drive systems on their respective agreements (Table 1). One main United Nations (UN) convention of importance to synthetic biology is the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In simple terms, the CBD has three main objectives: (i) conservation of biological diversity, (ii) sustainable use of its components, and (iii) fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of genetic resources. Since 2010, the CBD has discussed whether synthetic biology should be classified as a new and emerging issue and its objectives and activities are of considerable importance to the synthetic biology research community. For example, one objective of the CBD is to grant sovereign rights of countries over their genetic resources. Furthermore, the CBD is also deliberating whether or not new\/adapted regulations are needed for synthetic biology, how access and benefits sharing agreements (ABS) should be managed with digital sequence information (DSI) and also whether or not moratoriums on synthetic biology research and\/or applications to the environment should be implemented (Table 1). The CBD is also debating whether the products of synthetic biology should be considered under the convention, in addition to the process or technology used to produce them. The synthetic biology community should follow these deliberations closely and take the opportunity to engage directly within these processes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Synthetic biology is a rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field of science and engineering that aims to redesign living systems through reprogramming genetic information. The field has catalysed global debate among policymakers and publics. Here we describe how synthetic biology relates to these international deliberations, particularly the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Synthetic biology or engineering biology […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","nova_meta_subtitle":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5572],"tags":[14438,5817],"supplier":[11310],"class_list":["post-64505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bio-based","tag-biology","tag-research","supplier-cell-magazine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64505\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64505"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=64505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}