The roles of ethics in gene drive research and governance

Abstract

Ethics research queries the norms and values that shape the goals and justification for gene drive projects, and that might lead to issue or opposition to such projects. A framework for organizing ethics research is offered. In addition to basic research ethics and risk assessment, gene drives will give rise to questions about the fiduciary responsibilities of scientists, democratizing technology, and the links between epistemology and social power relations. A final category of ethical issues covers the way in which research on norms and values is organized, funded and integrated into other aspects of a gene drive project. ARTICLE HISTORY

Population management using gene drive: molecular design, models of spread dynamics and assessment of ecological risks

“…Scientists should be socially responsible for informing lawmakers and engaging with the "various publics that will use, be affected by, take an interest in, benefit from or be at risk from gene drives" (Thompson 2018). Such engagement is key so that stakeholders and local communities can make informed decisions, considering both the benefits and risks associated with gene drives as well as potential alternatives to the genetic engineering of wild populations.…”

“…Gantz and Bier 2016;Champer et al 2016;Harvey-Samuel et al 2017;Marshall and Akbari 2018), on their applications for human health or for pest control in agriculture (e.g. Macias et al 2017;Godfray et al 2017;Scott et al 2018;McFarlane et al 2018) or on the challenges of their development in terms of identifying current knowledge gaps (Moro et al 2018), biosafety (Benedict et al 2018), regulation (Oye et al 2014;Caplan et al 2015;Meghani and Kuzma 2018) and ethics (Courtier-Orgogozo et al 2017;Thompson 2018). Although a number of reviews presented some gene drive applications in conservation (Gould 2008;Esvelt et al 2014;Thresher et al 2014;Webber et al 2015;Piaggio et al 2017;Zentner and Wade 2017;Esvelt and Gemmell 2017;Moro et al 2018;Min et al 2018;Dearden et al 2018;Phelps et al 2019;Brossard et al 2019), the fundamental differences between the risks associated with rescue drives and those associated with suppression and eradication drives have not been considered previously.…”

Articulating ‘free, prior and informed consent’ (FPIC) for engineered gene drives

“…Many technical uncertainties remain unresolved, motivating continued laboratory experiments and modelling to understand the potential efficacy of these kinds of novel interventions prior to a field trial or environmental release [5]. Paired with scientific uncertainty, complex political uncertainties emerge regarding the desirability [7,12], ethical implications [13][14][15], ecological risks [16][17][18] and governance challenges [19,20] of engineered gene drives (also see [5,6]). Indeed, for many years, researchers, program funders, regulators, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and technology developers have wrestled with the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of emerging genomic technologies [21,22].…”

A roadmap for gene drives: using institutional analysis and development to frame research needs and governance in a systems context

“…Specific prompts were used to encourage participants to think about intersectional issues (like ethics and ecological risk), and collaborative systems modeling (CSM) was used as a tool to map relationships among variables in governance systems and feedback loops (Cockerill, Malczynski, and Tidwell 2009). On the first morning, presentations focused on three case studies of gene drives, which are described in detail elsewhere in this volume (ie vectors of human disease, ecological pests, and agricultural pests), and proposed a framework for considering ethical issues posed by gene drives (Thompson 2018). These presentations were followed by parallel, small-group discussions to identify ethical issues specific to each of the case studies or the different molecular mechanisms of gene drives (Figure 2).…”