Bio-security for a New Era

Abstract: Secrets: The Ethics of Concealment and the Ethics of Science in Synthetic Biological Research

Dr. Laurie Zoloth , Center for Bioethics, Science and Society, Northwestern University


Increasingly sophisticated techniques allow for increasing powerful and creative tools of biology to create new or altered forms of life. Such synthetic biology may offer unprecedented avenues for drug development, alternate energy sources, and medical therapeutics. Yet increasing unease also mounts about the possible misuse of such biology, and governments, scientists and citizens turn their attention to the question of how protect academic freedom in an age of terror. Are the fears of dual use of synthetic biology overblown? Or are such fears prudent? Who should protect the secrets of science, or is it simply inappropriate to conceal knowledge from the broadest possible community? What are the fair limits of concealment in science? Are the arguments of the marketplace and the need for competitive secrecy applicable to open source knowledge? How can the core ethical principle and praxis of veracity be balanced with the problem of security? How can the core ethical principle of confidentiality be reconciled with open source research? What is the difference between holding secrets and deceit? This lecture will raise some preliminary framing questions in the emerging field of synthetic biology, a field that has been a subject of attention and concern since its inception.

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