Interrupting Innovation: Pausing to Examine New Biotechnologies - I

Abstract

‘New biotechnologies’ including gene editing, RNAi, and gene drive stand to dramatically change prospects for human intervention in areas ranging from agriculture to wildlife conservation to human therapeutics (Doudna and Charpentier 2014). Such technologies promise unprecedented precision, speed, and cost-efficiency; their rapid uptake in basic and applied sciences around the world is reflected in skyrocketing publication rates, patents, and regulatory proposals. This pace requires a pause to reflect upon fundamental questions of science, ethics, and governance. We welcome papers that address any of the following themes:

(1) How will new biotechnologies be governed? Jasanoff and Hurlbut (2018) have called for a new “global observatory” for gene editing, while Kofler et al. (2018) suggest that global governance must be rooted in local community participation. What kinds of mechanisms, at which scales, and along which ethical guidelines should new biotechnologies be governed? Who gets to decide how, and on whose behalf, new biotechnologies will work?

(2) Dematerializing food, bodies, soil? With new biotechnologies, sequences of DNA and RNA have become vast repositories of digital information. To what extent does dematerialization accelerate capital’s existing tendencies to enclose, commodify, and cheapen nature? Conversely, could digitization open up S&T for transparent access and use? What are the all complications and contradictions that dematerialization brings?

(3) Democratizing science? Lower costs of new techniques raise the possibility of increased access for smaller labs and informal-sector ‘DIY’ users. Is, and how is, new biotechnology enabling access to wider classes and sectors of society? What are we learning about the distinction between democratization of access and democratization of decision-making power?

(4) Political economy & Knowledge regimes. Vanloqueren and Baret (2009) have suggested that current agricultural research systems shape a technological regime that develops genetic engineering but “locks out” agroecological innovations. More broadly, what are the risks and possibilities of new biotechnology and big data in terms of entrenching industrialization versus opening pathways to regeneration and sustainability? Does, and how does, intellectual property rights shape the terrain of new biotechnologies?

Chair

• Jennifer Sedell, University of California, Davis

Discussant

• Alastair Iles, UC Berkeley

Individual Presentations

• Biotechnologies in (or Creating) a World Without Barriers to Entry - Todd Kuiken, North Carolina State University

• Examining Synthetic Biology’s Entanglement with Concepts of "The Human": The Utility of Taking Stock - Sophie Alexandra Rose Stone, University of Edinburgh

• Localizing CRISPR/Cas9? Re-Imagining Gene Editing as Tool for Small-Scale Agriculture in Bavaria - Julia Feiler, Technical University Munich (TUM); Ruth Müller, MCTS TU München; Amy Louise Clare

• The CRISPR Question: Trajectories in Democratizing, Relocalizing, and Restructuring the Food System - Maywa Montenegro

• Visions of Animal Genome Editing - Phillip Macnaghten, Wageningen University; Senna Middelveld, Wageningen University, NL

Session Organizer

• Maywa Montenegro