| Intuitively it's not clear why there are risks from our work. Far from it! The very workshop minutes you are citing [1, Appendix 3] directly contradict your point, with participants raising a number of serious concerns about your project: "Many questions focused on the ethical and philosophical issues associated with the project, including matters of consenting public and responsible science practice. However, only questions relating to the research agenda, like those impacting regulatory consideration and potential ecological effects, are included here. Ecological interactions: - How will the impact of the bioluminescence from the plants on wild organisms be tracked across seed destinations? If this can’t be tracked or known ahead of time, then how is the application ready for release? - How have the interactions of insects with the glowing plant been characterized? Does this have the potential to disrupt pollinators? - Arabadopsis is frequently used in laboratories specifically because it is easy to grow and is a weedy species. How does this align with comments made regarding the difficulty of growing the plants, and the extreme unlikelihood that the seeds would take root and grow if released outdoors? - Were any types of biocontrol mechanisms employed or tested in the system? Why was sterility not introduced into the system when it could serve such a purpose? Determining regulatory coverage: - Habitats of relevance. - Tests for characterizing the application: The seed packets will not be regulated because the seeds were created using gene guns, while the DIY maker kits will be regulated because the system will rely on Agrobacterium. Neither can be shipped internationally. However, once these are distributed, how will use be monitored? If the plants are expected to be sent to thousands of individual sites around the country, how are habitats of relevance being determined? Are all of these locations being tracked, characterized, and assessed for specific vulnerabilities in advance of product release? The USDA APHIS test framework is insufficient for this purpose.
How could a model be developed to evaluate such a widely distributed application? What questions would need addressing in order to appropriately characterize the effort? - Demonstration of impact: Compare the altered plants to other mustards, and assess how well they grow. A series of greenhouse competition assays in a variety of environ- ments would be a good start, and any identified differences could point to areas requiring further study. Also study known pathway interactions up- and downstream. Emphasize the study of the resulting phenotypes, not the genetic modifications." [1] http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/SYNBIO_res_a... |