Coding life: The ethics and perils of programmable DNA

• In Event: Digital Criminology: Control and organized chaos in a ‘digital world’

Abstract

Recent scientific and technological innovations in molecular biology have enabled the rise of molecular computing, a multidisciplinary field that seeks to program molecules such as DNA and RNA to perform novel tasks. Combining biological materials and computational processes has already yielded innovative applications, particularly in medicine and agriculture, but this combination also poses many ethical challenges and potential threats to humans and other lifeforms. Based on an ethnographic study of the field of molecular computing, this paper explores the ethics and perils involved in these emerging interfaces between biological and bio-technological systems.

Author

• Stefano Mazzilli Daechsel, University of Oslo