Annex 2
SYNTHETIC BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERING
In late 2006, the Horizon Scanning Centre conducted
a small project with MoD on the defence implications of synthetic
biological engineering (SBE). Engineering was explicitly included
in the title in recognition that the field of synthetic biology[17]
is rapidly acquiring all the key characteristics of one of the
classical engineering disciplines:
- a set of rules that describe how those
components can (and can not) be fitted together to produce useful
devices and systems with known characteristics and predictable
behaviours;
- a significant-sized skilled workforce who
understand the rules, and can apply them consistently, and who
have ready access to the components.
The project found that SBE may be of relevance
to and influenced by a wide range of major issues affecting the
UK and its position in the world. These include, but are not limited
to, energy and resource availability, pollution control, health,
especially drug development, and IT. There was agreement that
a country with a large and well-supported science base will have
an advantage in making the most of SBE as the business and social
opportunities which it offers start to develop.
SBE might matter to MoD for a number of reasons,
including:
- It could be used to create a wide range
of devices, weapons etc.
- SBE might be used by small organisations
to create threats rapidly-no long build-up times or massive factories
to alert the target.
- It might offer value to the UK military,
such as the ability to make sensors and other battlefield devices
that run on ambient energy and which cost fractions of a penny
each.
- Some of SBE's pollution-cleaning potential
might be of military use, for example if SBE devices can remove
radioactive or chemical pollution.
- SBE devices that could turn almost anything
biological into energy would allow the military, both machines
and people, to live off the land more easily. They might also
be able to use sunlight more effectively than inorganic solar
collectors.
- Medical SBE devices might revolutionise
diagnosis and treatment in the field.
17 The Royal Society has described synthetic biology
in broad terms as "the design and construction of novel artificial
biological pathways, organisms or devices, or the redesign of
existing natural biological systems. It has enormous potential
applications and benefits, including the development of cheap
anti-malarial drugs, the production of cheap, green hydrogen for
fuel and the use of programmable cells to treat cancer and similar
illnesses". Back
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