Synthetic Biology
In 2010, when J Craig Venter and his group published the experiment in which the DNA of a bacterium had been completely replaced by a synthesized DNA (Gibson et al. 2010), the international press responded with excitement.
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Introduction
In 2010, when J. Craig Venter and his group published the experiment in which the DNA of a bacterium had been completely replaced by a synthesized DNA (Gibson et al. 2010), the international press responded with excitement. The headline of the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL illustrated the enthusiasm: “Breakthrough: Scientists create first artificial life”1 (Der Spiegel 2010). Since synthetic biology has been present in the media, the ‘usual suspects’ or patterns of interpretation come into the picture. For example, the literary figure of Faust is brought up (Hofmann 2010), as is Prometheus (The Economist 2006) or Frankenstein (Epping 2008; Belt 2009). Additionally, there is talk of the “homunculus” (H. Müller 2010) as a means to characterize the products of synthetic biology, and of the “golem”2 – all of them good old reminiscences of the hubris of the homo faber. A certain unease concerning new, uncontrolled possibilities in the biotechnologies is discernible. In order to differentiate, one has to ask: is synthetic biology taking a step forward compared to ‘classical’ biotechnology? Considering how synthetic biologists portray themselves/portray their field, synthetic biology seems to be clearly distinguishable from ‘traditional’ biotechnology. The aim of synthetic biology is the production of cell structures that do not exist in nature. The phrasing of the EU Expert Group on “New and Emerging Science and Technology” (NEST) might count as paradigmatic: “Synthetic biology is the engineering of biology: the synthesis of complex, biologically based (or inspired) systems which display functions that do not exist in nature.” (European Commission 2006) Not surprisingly,
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Own translation. Cf. Paul Root Wolpe’s statement in (Rejeski et al. 2010).
J. Boldt (Ed.), Synthetic Biology, Technikzukünfte, Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft / Futures of Technology,Science and Society, DOI 10.1007/978-3-658-10988-2_3, © Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden 2016
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Oliver Müller
Venter himself claims that the design of entirely new forms of life is limited only by our imagination (Alleyne 2010). ‘Synthetic biology’ is usually seen as an umbrella term for several biotechnological methods, approaches, programs, and not least, various bio-political agendas (cf. Bensaude Vincent 2013a; 2013b). But the tendency to use the semantic field of ‘creation’ points to the paradigm shift effected by synthetic biology: from manipulation to creation. Although the entities produced in synthetic biology and ‘classical’ genetic engineering might resemble each other, the explicit goal of synthetic biology is to produce new forms of life. In basic research, one speaks of ‘orthogonality’ when alternative bio-chemical systems are ‘constructed’ by using ‘atypical elements’. Witty biotechnologists refer to this as ‘parallel worlds’ or ‘parallel universes’. From a philosophical point of view, one can identify characteristic sets of technoscientific strategies, epistemological problems, and ontological challenges regarding hybrids such as ‘bi
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