Synthetic Biology’s Second World

Secrecy has long been a part of scientific and innovation practices. Being an ethnographer of laboratories, one occasionally comes up against a barrier of entry to a secret lab or space within a building, protected by intellectual property agreements, military or government contracts. Of course, military science is often conducted in secret, on nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, amongst other things. In his excellent book on ‘Secrecy and Science’, Brian Balmer describes how the Manhattan Project epitomised the way in which scientific secrecy operates at various levels of social organisation:

It was, in fact, an almost unprecedented organisation of not only scientists, but also industry and military. Moreover, a significant feature that accounts for the success of the Manhattan Project is the preoccupation with secrecy at the various sites involved in creating the atomic bomb. Compartmentalisation, telling people information on a strict need-to-know basis, meant only a few people had a complete overview of the project. […] In this manner, efficiency, security, bureaucracy and secrecy all came together at once. (Balmer, 2013: 8)

A poster from the Manhattan Project reminding scientists about the importance of secrecy.

By their nature, it is often the most controversial, risky and ethically dubious research programmes that are conducted in secret, curtained-off from society in order to protect knowledge and technology not only from public scrutiny but also espionage or corporate theft. Thus when we find out that science has been conducted in secret we are generally right to be suspicious, and it should be no surprise that a meeting convened earlier this week, behind closed doors at Harvard, on the prospect of synthesising the human genome, has caused a stir.

Human DNA base pairs

The meeting was convened to discuss the prospects of coordinating a large collaborative venture to follow-up on the Human Genome Project (HGP), that would, over the next decade, seek to construct an entire human genome in a cell line. Currently unfunded but to be prospectively titled ‘HGP-Write: Testing Large Synthetic Genomes in Cells’, it is backed by some of the biggest names in the field.

As the New York Times reports the meeting was invite-only and “The nearly 150 attendees were told not to contact the news media or to post on Twitter during the meeting.” In this regard, it would seem that scientists hosting the meeting wanted for the event to be part of what we could conceptualise – following the sociologist, Georg Simmels’ well-known work on secrecy – as synthetic biology’s ‘second world’. As Simmel argued:

Secrecy secures, so to speak, the possibility of a second world alongside of the obvious world, and the latter is most strenuously affected by the former. Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it. Even when one of the parties does not notice the secret factor, yet the attitude of the concealer, and consequently the whole relationship, will be modified by it. (Simmel, 1906: 462)

Synbiophobia phobia poster

A second world for synthetic biology is probably quite appealing to scientists working in the field, a space in which they could run-wild with their ideas without the worry of what a supposedly fearful public might think. Synthetic biologists, for the large part, expect the public will be inappropriately scared of developments in the field. This has led to what Claire Marris (2015) calls ‘synbiophobia phobia’ – the fear that scientists have that the public will fear their work.

Synbiophobia phobia might be at the root of the decision to hold the meeting in private, as the organisers likely anticipated public fear at the potential of creating a human genome from scratch. But, as Simmel’s notion reminds us, no matter whether parties kept in the dark find out about the secrets being kept or not, the effect of secrecy is to change the attitude of the concealer and consequently the whole relationship between scientists and civil society.

Contrary to some scientist’s reactions to the media response to the closed meeting, secrecy in synthetic biology isn’t just a fiction created by newspapers and magazines to whip-up a story. The field does have at least the beginnings of a second world, divorced from public scrutiny, then it is almost certainly going to be tied to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has had a keen interest in the field since its fledgling years and has invested tens of millions into synthetic biology under the remit of the Biological Technologies Office.

However, speaking to the NYT, George Church, one of the most prominent advocates of synthetic biology and co-organiser of the Harvard meeting, argued that the event had been misconstrued and that the secrecy was actually about protecting a paper currently under review that, if published, would make the ideas for the project publicly-available and thus transparent. But as the invite read, “We intentionally did not invite the media, because we want everyone to speak freely and candidly without concerns about being misquoted or misinterpreted as the discussions evolve.” Whatever the motivation for the closed-doors, invite-only meeting, the effect of concealment might well be the same: it implies that something suspicious is going on.

In this regard, the scientists have shot themselves in the foot. The meeting will worry people, even those who support synthetic biology in general. In fact, one of the most well-known advocates for synthetic biology, Drew Endy, refused to attend and co-authored an open letter criticising the closed meeting. It is only a matter of time until those more critical voices and outright enemies of synthetic biology seize on the secrecy of the meeting as further evidence of untoward ambitions for the field. It would be a mistake, though, to see this as unwarranted fear and ignorance. It has much more to do with the facts of synthetic biology and how it is being developed in relation to corporate interests. As Endy and Zoloth’s (2016: 2) letter argued:

The creation of new human life is one of the last human-associated processes that has not yet been industrialized or fully commodified. It remains an act of faith, joy, and hope. Discussions to synthesize, for the first time, a human genome should not occur in closed rooms.

Two of the common tenets of the emerging frameworks for responsible research and innovation, which has been closely tied to the development of synthetic biology, are the importance of scientific transparency and of deliberative governance processes. The UK Synthetic Biology Roadmap, for example, includes a commitment that the Synthetic Biology Leadership Council should “should provide an exemplar of openness and transparency with two-way stakeholder engagement as a core principle.” (SBRCG, 2012: 32)

Transparancey: More than a window into the lab

But transparency is easier invoked than it is implemented. If scientists are going to take responsible research and innovation seriously, then actually implementing transparency and deliberation is going to be crucial, especially when the choices about such things are immediately within their control, as was the case this week. A second world for synthetic biology might be appealing in principle, but in practice it risks bringing about exactly the kinds of public fears that scientists and engineers worry about.

References

Balmer, B. (2013) Secrecy and science: A historical sociology of biological and chemical warfare. Surrey: Ashgate.

Marris, C. (2015). The construction of imaginaries of the public as a threat to synthetic biology. Science as Culture, 24(1), 83-98.

Simmel, G. (1906) The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. The American Journal of Sociology, 11(4), 441-498.

SBRCG (2012) A Synthetic Biology Roadmap for the UK, http://www.rcuk.ac.uk/RCUK-prod/assets/documents/publications/SyntheticBiologyRoadmap.pdf

Can Scientists Engage Critically with Capitalism?

At a recent meeting of the synthetic biology community, SB6.0, researchers from around the world descended on Imperial College London to discuss the state of affairs in standardising the engineering of biology. Embedded into the programme of events were some discussions of knowledge translation and that most recent of neoliberal terms for technoscience governance, ‘responsible innovation’.

Jack Stilgoe, an STS scholar at UCL, has been one important figure in cementing the use of this term in governance circles, which – understandably – both excites and troubles him. He, along with many of us interested in the sociology of knowledge, have seen responsible innovation be rapidly taken-up like a standardised plasmid by a competent cell. As biologists and sociologists alike will tell you, though: (cellular) context is important. So what happens in different spaces to the terminology and practices of responsible innovation? We don’t know as yet, but synbio is an interesting and important place to watch some of this unfold.

Responsibility sounds like a good word to hear in this context, and when coupled to innovation it promises perhaps a more critical engagement with the relationships between industry and academy. Synthetic biology is certainly a space in which these relations are currently being negotiated, whether in the production of artemisinin or the development of novel forms of pedagogy and sharing.

One of the primary tenets of responsible innovation, whatever form it might take in different sociotechnical spaces, is that innovators (whether they’re natural scientists, engineers, industrialists or so on) have to engage substantively with the concerns of publics. This means more than listening. It means changing what you’re doing and what you plan to do in your innovations by virtue of those engagements.

Scientists tend to think that public actors are mostly worried about frankenfoods and grey goo, assuming that publics misunderstand science and thus hold incorrect opinions about its implications. Indeed (though I’m so tired of saying it I want to scream) I still spend significant amounts of time in meetings explaining this assumption, challenging it and showing how alternative accounts of public actors are far more fruitful for engagement and – dare I say it – for science as well.

How is responsible innovation being adopted in synbio? In perhaps the most prominent example, the findings of the synthetic biology dialogue report  are not so much integrated into research practices but are instead regularly trotted out at conferences and in interviews as evidence that synthetic biologists and the RCUK are doing responsible innovation. It becomes used as a sign of responsibility but not a provocation to it. Some of the primary findings of that dialogue continue to be overlooked when synthetic biologists talk about their work. There’s still a huge reliance on the idea that  public actors are largely troubled by the objects of science: in this context, engineered microorganisms. Contrary to this assumption, the dialogue showed that the people involved  were not only interested in the objects of science but also significantly concerned with the processes and imaginaries of scientific innovations. One important question was about the use of public money to fund synthetic biology; the danger being that scientists could get too cosy with industry, patent everything, and focus narrowly on making a successful, profit-generating innovation.

Something of a stir was caused at the SB6.0 conference by activists from Luddites200 and Biofuelwatch handing out an open letter to the delegates as they entered the building. There were some conversations and tweets about it, and Tom Ellis from Imperial posed the questions from the activists’ letter to the panel on responsible innovation. I think this is a signal that synthetic biologists are interested in engaging with a debate about public and NGO concerns.

However, the letter seems largely to have been understood only as an uninformed attack on synthetic biology. For example, Alex Taylor wrote a quick blog post about the letter, where he noted how it raised interesting points for discussion. But he went on to deal mostly with the points he could transform into technical questions, or took up assertions in the letter he could pit against assertions of his own (synbio is bad; synbio is good). His response missed much of the message of the letter, which is primarily about the industrialisation of biology (clearly a question important to the Luddites200 movement, which is concerned with ensuring capital and technology serves the commonality and not vice versa). Take the following paragraph from the open letter:

“If the problem were just conceptual, it wouldn’t be so bad. But synthetic biology’s technocratic projects have massively damaging practical consequences. Time and again the cause of these disasters is that the technocratic mindset leads you to mis-define the problem as technical, when its real cause is social. Your tool is a hammer, so every problem looks to you like a nail. The real cause of climate change is industrial capitalism, and it can’t be fixed with biofuels. Such technofixes are always intended to keep the system that caused the problem going. And because they are part of the problem they perpetuate it: in the quest to supply our absurd overuse of energy and to prop up the profit-making of multinational companies, biofuels are already leading to environmental damage, hunger and the grabbing of land from Third World farmers.”

Of this, Taylor says:

“The author makes some interesting points about the use of biofuels and, presumably, GM (which is the research field that synthetic biology has seemingly assimilated). Whilst the inappropriate, unilateral and unethical use of these technologies is certainly something we, as a society, must be mindful of, I would point out that the potential benefits clearly warrant further investigation. Like all scientific endeavours, synthetic biology and its applications […] must be conducted in an evidence-based and academically rigorous manner. I do not deny that synthetic biology has the potential to be dangerous, but it is only through careful research – good science – that we find out how to make biotechnology better, cheaper and safer, and to study the consequences of human action – if there is evidence to be had that the natural world is at risk from human intervention then it is we, scientists such as those attending the SB6.0 conference, who are your strongest allies.”

This response positions questions of ethics and inappropriate use of technologies as things of which to be ‘mindful’ whilst ensuring that we explore the potential benefits. The appeal is to evidence-based application and academic rigour, coupled to promises of “better, cheaper and safer” biotechnology and an assertion that with evidence of risks to the natural world scientists will be on their/your side. This doesn’t respond to the argument put forward in the letter, which – in regard to biofuels – doesn’t concern their technical risks and costs but rather the way in which their adoption would support current structures of industrial (biotech) capitalism. These are not things about which evidence is easy to accrue or display.

Without wishing this blog post to become more a question of “can Alex Taylor engage critically with capitalism?”, (which would of course be an unjust focus) I do think his response is characteristic of technical experts when they discuss their work with NGO groups and social scientists in the context of questions about industry, capitalism and technology. This makes me wonder, can scientists engage critically with capitalism?

Synthetic biology is a good place to pose the question because it is resoundingly co-opted into the current development of the bioeconomy. David Willets announced a whole bunch of funding at the conference, there’s loads coming up for Centres from the BBSRC and EPSRC. Willets has also positioned synbio as one of the eight great technologies that will save the economy and – one is encouraged to imagine – the world. This happens because individual scientists and governance actors shape the present by promises of the future. For example, the politically-savvy Richard Kitney pushed hard for the UK RoadMap, is co-director of CSynBi and now runs the IKC in synbio. But it isn’t just people that make these things happen. In the story of industry, profit and engineering, the practices and norms of engineering were themselves importantly shaped by processes of industrialisation and vice versa. The notions of efficiency, standardisation, specialisation, abstraction and so on thus operate in both worlds as engineering shaped capital and capital shaped engineering. The ontological remit of synthetic biology to create novel parts has eagerly begun to embed this technopolitical economic system of norms, values and processes into biological material and the shaping of synbio research practices. Even the pursuit of sharing practices ostensibly intended to open-up knowledge and the material of synbio is based on such processes. The creation of these spaces of innovation with biological organisms are premised on a future in which more and more people have access to synbio techniques and materials, and on the meritocractic assumption that wealth goes only to those with merit. The imaginary and vision of synbio, borrowed from the computer industry, promises a bohemian, Google-like ‘Don’t Be Evil’, Silicon Valley of synbio entrepreneurs who built cool bio gadgets, saved poor people and made a fortune. This is the modern neo-liberal promise, in which anyone can unshackle themselves from poverty by using knowledge and their own bootstraps to pull themselves out of the structures in which they were born and reach the heights of social order.

All of this is so far removed from the practical concerns of activists struggling to make their voice and concerns heard that it’s no wonder everyone ends up talking at crossed wires. Activists are concerned, for example, with how contemporary neoliberal responses to the banking crisis only furthers austerity, making poorer people poorer and rich people richer. These are not questions for economists to worry about whilst synthetic biologists carry on making cool widgets. They have to be asked at the nexus of science and the economy, particularly when science is being positioned as the backbone of that economy. I imagine a lot of synthetic biologists genuinely hope their innovations will alleviate poverty and inequality and that they can do this through the processes in which they are embedded. But their dreams of the future are inherently invested with the ideology in which they have to work. If they want to secure funding, progress in their careers, train up new postgraduates and postdocs, secure a lab, be able to pursue their own interests and so on, they have to play the game of neoliberal technocracy. I empathise deeply with this situation because it is the one in which I also work. However, I’ve got a whole bunch of critical tools that, although they don’t allow me to completely remove myself from the context, allow me to critically engage with it. If there’s one thing science could do better in the current context of impact and responsibility, it would be to get more critical. Again, this doesn’t mean just being anti-capitalism or anti-technology, but rather engaging substantively with its processes, promises and implications.

As such, I think perhaps the most pressing question facing synthetic biology if it is to be truly responsible in its innovation has to be a detailed and deeply practical concern with whether the science is done in service of people everywhere or in the service of corporations. This is exactly the kind of thing that the participants of the synthetic biology dialogue have in mind. That means reassurances based on technical solutions won’t be adequate to the public concerns with synthetic biology.

The final sentence of the open letter states that “if humanity is going to get out of the hole that technocratic capitalism has dug, we need to stop digging.” This doesn’t mean quitting synthetic biology out of fear of mutant microorganisms. It isn’t threatening a revolt based on ignorance. Instead, it asks scientists to open themselves up to the contexts in which their practices are based because those scientific developments are part of those contexts. I don’t know the people at Luddites200, and I would not have written the letter with the same tone, but I think some of their questions are important to consider in ways that don’t reduce the issues to ‘merely’ technical problems. Responsibility here means taking seriously the challenge that synthetic biology might serve to further global crises and inequalities rather than ameliorate them. If synthetic biologists want to be truly responsible they have to talk openly about their plans to profit from their microorganisms. What was the justification for the funding of the research and how will that impact on the direction of the work? Where will the money go? Where did the money come from? And who owns the patents? What effects will the capitalisation of some synbio device have on economies outside of the UK, Europe and USA? Where will (un)employment happen? What will the labour be like and is it sustainable? What kinds of lives does the invention make possible and what kinds does it foreclose? These kinds of questions are not addenda to the issue of technical design. They cannot be fixed with kill-switches or bland assurances that ethics are being considered. These questions have to be built into the organisation of research projects, their funding, their obligations to social groups, their daily laboratory practices, and ultimately into the objects themselves.

The potential of responsible innovation will depend greatly on how the question of responsibility is understood. In the pursuit of their own academic interests, and in their important and valuable technical explorations and adventures in synthetic biology, it will be essential for synthetic biologists to ask: in the game of synthetic life, who wins and who loses?

Images and Visualisation: Imaging Technology, Truth and Trust

Image courtesy of Mette Høst

I recently co-chaired (with Brigitte Nerlich and Annamaria Carusi) an ESF conference on visualisation, hosted by the University of Linköping but actually held in Norrköping, Sweden. It went swimmingly, with a variety of interesting and instructive presentations and posters, from philosophers, sociologists, anthropologists, nanoscientists, astronomers, clinicians, modellers and academics from a variety of other disciplinary backgrounds. We also had contributions from artists and designers, who provided an enlightening and importantly different take on the way in which representations of/in science are produced, circulated and used.

You can see the final programme here: http://www.esf.org/index.php?id=9613

There were too many participants to name them all, and I don’t think I could really choose the ‘best’ as it were. But here are some of the themes that we addressed over the course of the week.

1. Images and bodies: visual representations of various aspects of human and animal bodies, from the brain to arteries and from unicorns to monsters, the epistemological challenges posed by such images, the problems they pose for public participation in science and the issues around their use in medical practice.
2. Images between bodies: issues around the use and interpretation of images between practitioners, such as radiographers and radiologists, doctors and patients, novice scientists and mature experts, scientific communities and lay communities.
3. Maps and mapping: from brain images to landscapes, GIS and google maps, from the quantum level to quasars, again the issue of how these maps function within and across expert and lay communities was important, but so was the concept of ‘mapping’ as process.
4. Scales of images and issues of beauty: the issue of the aesthetic quality of images of various scales and what makes a ‘good’ image, who decides when it is ‘good’ and for whom, and in what context.
5. Images and ethics: issues around truth and trust were discussed with relation to representations, for example in how astronomical images are used for public outreach and how engaging publics depends on images that attract attention. We discussed whether there was an ‘ethical’ balance between beauty and truth and how that was negotiated in practice.
6. Images and epistemology: here the issue of ‘representation’ was crucial. Much of the discussion was concerned with escaping an extreme relativism or a naïve realism when thinking through the relation between an image and reality, between an image and our knowledge of reality, especially with relation to phenomena that are by definition invisible, i.e. below the wavelength of light for example.
7. Images and the constitution of social facts we explore how representations were used in the constitution of the self through brain imaging or pain mapping, and the significance of documentary photography for famine in India during British colonialism.

Overall, it was fascinating and there was a lot of will to continue our interactions in the future. We’re hoping to set-up a visualisation and science wiki, and I’ll post on that in the future. In the meantime, we have an email list and if anyone would like to be added to it, then do let me know.