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Synthetic Biology Analysed

Tools for Discussion and Evaluation

  • Book
  • © 2016

Overview

Editors:
  1. Margret Engelhard

    1. & Innovation Assessment GmbH, EA European Academy of Technology, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany

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  • Concentrates on the societal discussion about synthetic biology
  • Scrutinizes traditional concepts such as "life" or "artificial"
  • Leads to a refined view for societal, particularly ethical, evaluation
  • Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Part of the book series: Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment (ETHICSSCI, volume 44)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. The New Worlds of Synthetic Biology—Synopsis

    • Margret Engelhard, Michael Bölker, Nediljko Budisa, Kristin Hagen, Christian Illies, Rafael Pardo-Avellaneda et al.
    Pages 1-25

  3. Synthetic Biology: Diverse Layers of Live

    • Michael Bölker, Margret Engelhard, Nediljko Budisa
    Pages 27-50

  4. Old and New Risks in Synthetic Biology: Topics and Tools for Discussion

    • Margret Engelhard, Michael Bölker, Nediljko Budisa
    Pages 51-69

  5. The Concept of Life in Synthetic Biology

    • Georg Toepfer
    Pages 71-88

  6. New Debates in Old Ethical Skins

    • Christian Illies
    Pages 89-125

  7. Synthetic Biology: Public Perceptions of an Emergent Field

    • Rafael Pardo Avellaneda, Kristin Hagen
    Pages 127-170

  8. In Search for a Legal Framework for Synthetic Biology

    • Gerd Winter
    Pages 171-211
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Keywords

About this book

Synthetic biology is a dynamic, young, ambitious, attractive, and heterogeneous scientific discipline. It is constantly developing and changing, which makes societal evaluation of this emerging new science a challenging task, prone to misunderstandings. Synthetic biology is difficult to capture, and confusion arises not only regarding which part of synthetic biology the discussion is about, but also with respect to the underlying concepts in use. This book offers a useful toolbox to approach this complex and fragmented field. It provides a biological access to the discussion using a 'layer' model that describes the connectivity of synthetic or semisynthetic organisms and cells to the realm of natural organisms derived by evolution.
Instead of directly reviewing the field as a whole, firstly our book addresses the characteristic features of synthetic biology that are relevant to the societal discussion. Some of these features apply only to parts of synthetic biology, whereas others are relevant to synthetic biology as a whole. In the next step, these new features are evaluated with respect to the different areas of synthetic biology. Do we have the right words and categories to talk about these new features? In the third step, traditional concepts like “life” and “artificiality” are scrutinized with regard to their discriminatory power. This approach may help to differentiate the discussion on synthetic biology. Lastly our refined view is utilized for societal evaluation. We have investigated the public views and attitudes to synthetic biology. It also includes the analysis of ethical, risk and legal questions, posed by present and future practices of synthetic biology.
This book contains the results of an interdisciplinary research projectand presents the authors’ main findings and recommendations. They are addressed to science, industry, politics and the general public interested in this upcoming field of biotechnology.

Editors and Affiliations

  • & Innovation Assessment GmbH, EA European Academy of Technology, Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, Germany

    Margret Engelhard

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Synthetic Biology Analysed

  • Book Subtitle: Tools for Discussion and Evaluation

  • Editors: Margret Engelhard

  • Series Title: Ethics of Science and Technology Assessment

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-25145-5

  • Publisher: Springer Cham

  • eBook Packages: Engineering, Engineering (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-25143-1Published: 25 April 2016

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-79741-0Published: 22 April 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-25145-5Published: 15 April 2016

  • Series ISSN: 1860-4803

  • Series E-ISSN: 1860-4811

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 211

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Bioethics, Theory of Medicine/Bioethics, Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering

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