Ecological firewalls for synthetic biology

Vidiella, Blai; Solé, Ricard V.

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104658

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 75 publications

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“…Getting it right will mean balancing brave investments ( Hodgson et al, 2022 ) with monitoring the effects, including developing an ethics and a taxonomy for working with AI-synbio-human hybrids and intelligence ( Nesbeth et al, 2016 ; Damiano and Stano, 2023 ), dealing with new synthetic pathogens ( O’Brien and Nelson, 2020 ), saying carefully goodbye to the natural world ( Lawrence, 2019 ; Webster-Wood et al, 2022 ; Bongard and Levin, 2023 ) or at least radically enhancing biocontainment ( Schmidt and de Lorenzo, 2016 ; Aparicio, 2021 ; Vidiella and Solé, 2022 ; Hoffmann, 2023 ), as well as developing new approaches to worker safety ( Murashov et al, 2020 ). This leads into the issue of dual use of concern, which currently is a binary issue even though it is about to become immensely complex, requiring a more nuanced approach ( Evans, 2022 ; Sandbrink, 2023a ), given the legitimate concern with deliberate, perhaps even deliberate synthetic pandemics ( Sandbrink, 2023b ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The whack-a-mole governance challenge for AI-enabled synthetic biology: literature review and emerging frameworks

Undheim

2024

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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AI-enabled synthetic biology has tremendous potential but also significantly increases biorisks and brings about a new set of dual use concerns. The picture is complicated given the vast innovations envisioned to emerge by combining emerging technologies, as AI-enabled synthetic biology potentially scales up bioengineering into industrial biomanufacturing. However, the literature review indicates that goals such as maintaining a reasonable scope for innovation, or more ambitiously to foster a huge bioeconomy do not necessarily contrast with biosafety, but need to go hand in hand. This paper presents a literature review of the issues and describes emerging frameworks for policy and practice that transverse the options of command-and-control, stewardship, bottom-up, and laissez-faire governance. How to achieve early warning systems that enable prevention and mitigation of future AI-enabled biohazards from the lab, from deliberate misuse, or from the public realm, will constantly need to evolve, and adaptive, interactive approaches should emerge. Although biorisk is subject to an established governance regime, and scientists generally adhere to biosafety protocols, even experimental, but legitimate use by scientists could lead to unexpected developments. Recent advances in chatbots enabled by generative AI have revived fears that advanced biological insight can more easily get into the hands of malignant individuals or organizations. Given these sets of issues, society needs to rethink how AI-enabled synthetic biology should be governed. The suggested way to visualize the challenge at hand is whack-a-mole governance, although the emerging solutions are perhaps not so different either.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The whack-a-mole governance challenge for AI-enabled synthetic biology: literature review and emerging frameworks

Undheim

2024

Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.

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“…Furthermore, different types of ecological firewalls for the containment of engineered strains or communities have recently been proposed, and their efficiency has been calculated. These approaches rely on resource availability of pollutants as growth substrates, mutualistic dependency of ecological factors, or parasitic interactions of an engineered strain with the resident community [99] . However, no practical work on ecological firewalls has been performed so far, so that it is difficult to judge whether the effect that is predicted by differential equations on paper can be replicated in a complex real‐world scenario.…”

Section: The Quest For Synthetic Biology‐assisted Marine Bioremediationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These approaches rely on resource availability of pollutants as growth substrates, mutualistic dependency of ecological factors, or parasitic interactions of an engineered strain with the resident community. [99] However, no practical work on ecological firewalls has been performed so far, so that it is difficult to judge whether the effect that is predicted by differential equations on paper can be replicated in a complex real-world scenario. In summary, methods for safeguarded deployment would constitute a middle ground between containment and spread of genetically enhanced microbes in the environment; but it would be possible that the engineered safeguard mechanisms are disabled by evolutionary adapta- tions or horizontal gene transfer between engineered strains and native microorganisms.…”

Section: Containment or Spread Of Genetically Enhanced Microbes For B...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Taking Synthetic Biology to the Seas: From Blue Chassis Organisms to Marine Aquaforming

Borzyskowski

2023

ChemBioChem

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Oceans cover 71 % of Earth's surface and are home to hundreds of thousands of species, many of which are microbial. Knowledge about marine microbes has strongly increased in the past decades due to global sampling expeditions, and hundreds of detailed studies on marine microbial ecology, physiology, and biogeochemistry. However, the translation of this knowledge into biotechnological applications or synthetic biology approaches using marine microbes has been limited so far. This review highlights key examples of marine bacteria in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, and outlines possible future work based on the emerging marine chassis organisms Vibrio natriegens and Halomonas bluephagenesis. Furthermore, the valorization of algal polysaccharides by genetically enhanced microbes is presented as an example of the opportunities and challenges associated with blue biotechnology. Finally, new roles for marine synthetic biology in tackling pressing global challenges, including climate change and marine pollution, are discussed.

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“…The design principles also aim at a control of the engineered strains thanks to ecological nonlinearities. In this context, some ecological interaction motifs [ 123 ] and network-level constraints [ 124 ] act as firewalls to the spread of synthetic microbes. An example of this view is the potential of terraforming for drylands [ 97 , 98 , 125 ].…”

Section: Biodiversity Adaptation and Engineeringmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years

Solé

Levin

2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Global warming, habitat loss and overexploitation of limited resources are leading to alarming biodiversity declines. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems that display multiple alternative states and can shift from one to another in abrupt ways. Some of these tipping points have been identified and predicted by mathematical and computational models. Moreover, multiple scales are involved and potential mitigation or intervention scenarios are tied to particular levels of complexity, from cells to human–environment coupled systems. In dealing with a biosphere where humans are part of a complex, endangered ecological network, novel theoretical and engineering approaches need to be considered. At the centre of most research efforts is biodiversity, which is essential to maintain community resilience and ecosystem services. What can be done to mitigate, counterbalance or prevent tipping points? Using a 30-year window, we explore recent approaches to sense, preserve and restore ecosystem resilience as well as a number of proposed interventions (from afforestation to bioengineering) directed to mitigate or reverse ecosystem collapse. The year 2050 is taken as a representative future horizon that combines a time scale where deep ecological changes will occur and proposed solutions might be effective. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.

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Ecological firewalls for synthetic biology

Cited by 8 publications

References 75 publications

The whack-a-mole governance challenge for AI-enabled synthetic biology: literature review and emerging frameworks

The whack-a-mole governance challenge for AI-enabled synthetic biology: literature review and emerging frameworks

Taking Synthetic Biology to the Seas: From Blue Chassis Organisms to Marine Aquaforming

Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years

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