Two ITAS Days Devoted to Synthetic Biology [30.06.2011]

On 21 and 22 June 2011, workshops staged within the framework of the SYNTH-ETHICS and Engineering Life projects were attended by some 50 experts from Germany and abroad. Among the subjects discussed at these two ITAS workshops were the state of research in the field of synthetic biology, risk aspects, potential applications and questions relating to public discourse on and the political handling of SynBio. At an evening event staged by ITAS on 21 June at the Center for Media and Art Karlsruhe (ZKM), Michael Liss (Life Technologies, Geneart), Philippe Marlière (Global Bioenergies), Pat Mooney (ETC Group), Uwe Strähle (KIT-ITG and Heidelberg University), Christoph Then (Testbiotech) and Birgit Wiltschi (Bioss, Freiburg University) discussed the opportunities and risks presented by SynBio and took questions from the audience, which turned out to be gratifyingly large and keen to discuss the issues raised. It became clear that synthetic biology is a controversial topic which arouses a great deal of public interest. The evening event, at which there was also a screening of short films - the Bio:Fiction@Karlsruhe -, opened with introductory lectures by Joachim Boldt (Freiburg University, Institute of Ethics and History of Medicine) and Rafael Capurro (Karlsruhe) and was chaired by Armin Grunwald (ITAS). The event was supported by the Centre for Cultural and General Studies (ZAK) at KIT, the Engineering Life project, the Bio:Fiction Science, Art & Film Festival and ZKM. It is one of the public dialogue activities of the SYNTH-ETHICS project supported by the European Commission. More detailed reports of the workshops and evening event will be published here in the near future. At 4.05 pm on 13 July 2011, the German radio station SWR2 will be broadcasting within its magazine "Impuls - das Magazin für Neugierige und Wissensdurstige" a programme about SynBio, for which participants of the two ITAS workshops were interviewed.