Participants List and Commentary - Synthetic Biology and Engineering Ethics Workshop

Commentary On
Workshop Notes on Synthetic Biology and Engineering Ethics

This list includes the name, affiliation, website, and comments from each of the participants in the Synthetic Biology and Engineering Ethics Workshop conducted at the National Academy of Engineering 500 Fifth Street, NW, Washington DC, September 30, 2010.

SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY

Kristala Jones Prather, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT,
(Website)

Bruce Rittmann, Director of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology in the Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University,
(Website; Comments) 

Brian Pfleger, Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,
(Website; Comments)

James Kealey, Director of the Molecular Biology Department, Amyris Biotechnologies
(Website; Comments)

ENGINEERING ETHICS

Deborah Johnson, Anne Shirley Carter Olsson Professor of Applied Ethics in the Department of Science, Technology, and Society in the School of Engineering and Applied Science of the University of Virginia, 
(Website; Comments)

Carl Mitcham, Professor at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, Colorado School of Mines
(Website; Comments)
 

Michael Loui, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois – Urbana, 
(Website; Comments)

Mariachiara Tallacchini, Professor of Philosophy of Law at the Law Faculty of the Catholic University of Piacenza (Italy),
(Website; Comments)

Research Questions

Participants in the workshop were asked to consider the following questions.  The "Comments" listed below include each participant's pre-workshop responses to these questions.

  • FOR EXPERTS IN ENGINEERING ETHICS
    • After reading the one-pager, can you come up with two questions focused on ethical issues that seem key to developing socially responsible synthetic biology?
    • Can you also formulate one personal reflection about the shape that collaborations between engineering ethics and an emerging technology like synthetic biology should take?
    • What activities and materials should have priority in ethics training in synthetic biology?
  • FOR EXPERTS IN SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
    • After reading the one-pager, can you come up with two ethics-related questions that seem key or unaddressed, or that you have encountered while practicing bio-engineering/synthetic biology?
    • Can you also formulate one personal reflection about the shape that collaborations between experts in synthetic biology and experts in engineering ethics should take?
    • What activities and materials should have priority in ethics training in synthetic biology?