Life in the Gray Zone: Governance of New Biology in Europe, South Korea, and the United States

Harvard University, Cambridge MA

Investigators

Abstract

Life in the Gray Zone: Governance of New Biology in Europe, South Korea, and the United States Intellectual Merit: This proposal constitutes the first phase of a long-term study of the co-evolution of research in the biosciences and biotechnologies together with political and constitutional decisionmaking in advanced industrial nations. Using an innovative cross-national research design, focusing primarily on the US, UK, and Germany, the project will follow legal, ethical, and social responses to two novel biological constructs: animal-human chimeras and the synthetic organism called Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0. These inventions are challenging scientific and policy thinking by crossing three salient conceptual boundaries: human and non-human; life and non-life; person and property. These classes of objects are produced in divergent ethical, legal, and cultural contexts that have given rise to different ways of classifying and governing them. In an era of globalized scientific activity?the exchange of materials, mobility of scientists, publication, data sharing, and risk assessment?it is critically important to analyze and explain the basis for disparate national treatments. The project will make intellectual contributions on three dimensions: (a) Improved legal and political theories of public reason, to illuminate how legal and political decision makers explicate their treatment of novel biologica constructs. (b) Novel research methods to explain how civil and common law constitutional cultures diverge in their approaches to regulating new entities that challenge pre existing classifications. (c) New empirical knowledge about the governance of two rapidly developing areas of biology (stem cells and synthetic biology), including relevant legislation, case law, ethical principles, and regulatory decisions. Broader Impacts: The project will contribute to human resource development and advance efforts to build the infrastructure for science and technology studies at Harvard. It will strengthen the Science and Democracy Network founded by the PI. It will continue bridge-building across scientific research labs, policy institutions, and professional communities, and construct a web-based public database and research platform for STS scholars and other users.