Cloning futures?

It has recently emerged that meat from cloned animals has entered the UK food chain without authorisation under the Novel Food Regulations. The safety of these products, the welfare of the cloned animals and how the general population perceives the risk of this technology pose challenges for policymakers. In the European Parliament, MEPs voted to ban cloning-derived products and this could become EU law in the autumn.

Agricultural Innovation and Food Security in Sub-Saharan Africa: Tracing Connections and Missing Links

Julius Mugwagwa and Simon Outram edited a Special Issue of the Journal of International Development (Vol 22, Issue 3), published in April 2010. Here, Julius describes some of the background to this issue:

With a special emphasis on agricultural biotechnologies, the special issue examines from different perspectives why advanced expertise and technological availability have seemingly had only a minor impact on the productivity of agriculture and hence food security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Sustainable Businesses in the Regenerative Medicine Industry

By Joyce Tait

Successful and sustainable businesses in the Regenerative Medicine industry need to incorporate strategies to address key factors beyond individual business boundaries. These include legal, ethical and financial frameworks, distribution and logistics, and end users willingness to adopt and ability to pay. Business models need to be well adapted to the needs of this market and wil vary depending on whether the end product is a cellular therapy, a delivery system for cells, genes or small molecules or enabling tools and technologies for stimulating endogenous repair. The value systems for each of these types of products are likely to have unique features but will also need to be compliant with global regulatory and legal frameworks.

Does DNA = life?

Jane Calvert and Emma Frow reflect on the Venter Institute’s breakthrough

The publication of the paper ‘Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome’ by scientists at the J. Craig Venter Institute has been accompanied by the expression of a whole spectrum of hopes and fears that we have come to associate with new biotechnologies. But we suggest that some of the more overlooked features of the paper may turn out to be the most interesting. Here we highlight four.

Synthetic biology & Scotland

Innogen’s Professor Joyce Tait participated in a debate about synthetic biology at the Edinburgh International Science Festival on 13th April 2010.

Joyce joined renowned chemist and synthetic biology expert Prof. Ben Davis (Oxford University) and Dr. Jim Haseloff, researcher and lecturer in synthetic biology (Cambridge University) and Richard Holloway, former Bishop of Edinburgh for the event Designer Life: Scotland’s Next Industrial Revolution?, chaired by Quentin Cooper, BBC Science Presenter.

Can we get better at generating impacts from research? How can evaluation help?

By Dr Laura Meagher, Technology Development Group and Visiting Fellow, Innogen and
Dr Catherine Lyall, Innogen

Like all governments that invest in university research, the UK government hopes to see returns, not only in terms of academic excellence, but also in the form of economic benefits and other societal impacts including health, culture, education, justice and well-being1. This is particularly apparent as we await further details from the pilot exercise being conducted by HEFCE as part of the consultation on the Research Excellence Framework2 which proposes to assess, for the first time, demonstrable economic and social impacts deriving from academic research.

The truth shall not set you free?

By Julius Mugwagwa

Spending a week in Uganda and taking part in the agrobiotech, biosafety and seed systems conference second week of March brought me head-on with a number of persistent realities facing the development and deployment of modern agricultural biotechnology in Sub-Saharan Africa. I’ve trailed biotech debates in Sub-Saharan Africa for a decade now, and consider myself well-equipped to understand the twists and turns in the terrain. Ten years is a long time, but for me it has brought persistent feelings of paramnesia … feelings of certainty that what is being said has to a large extent been said before. However, if you ask me, that in itself is not the problem, but the underlying reasons for that stagnant debate are.

For a start, and as has long been confirmed, the dynamics behind this technology go beyond what the science can churn out. It’s to a much bigger extent about the technology-transcending politics of governing the technology to gain a balance among the contending interests of many stakeholders dotted around the value chain. Many players have entered the fray over the years to try and unblock the many grid-locks that lie in the path of successful introduction of biotech products in the region. For example, a number of NGOs and other non-state players specialising in ‘biotechnology communication’ have emerged in the region and taken over the role of educating the public on the pros and cons of modern biotechnology.

While it appears like scientists have taken a back seat to allow the specialised organisations to find and deliver suitable messages, the reality is that the majority of the people running these organisations are established scientists in their own right. They have fought the science communication battle from different fronts, starting as laboratory scientists occasionally invited to give talks at workshops or speaking their messages through others. Now they say they see the need to fight their own battles, with a little help from colleagues who specialise in communication.

Meanwhile, for the ordinary member of the public, it’s the lack of a firm middle ground which is worrying. When the debate started several years ago now, there were a number of organisations championing a neutral, balanced-information agenda, but gradually they have all moved either to the left or to the right, a trend which mirrors the funding opportunities available. The messages and the messengers seem to be following the money. Putting all this together, one cannot help sparing a moment to ponder over what one of the delegates at the Uganda conference said … that in this biotech debate the truth shall not set you free! What will? Food for thought!