Is Public Health and Safety Being Considered in the Construction of LBNL's New Biolab in Berkeley?
By Jeremy Gruber, Tina Stevens, and Becky McClain,
The Berkeley Daily Planet
| 08. 08. 2011
In April of this year,
U.C. Berkeley researchers announced the creation of the
U. C. Berkeley Synthetic Biology Institute (SBI), which will ramp up efforts to “engineer” cells and biological systems. Part of its research will include experiments that insert manufactured stretches of DNA into existing organisms to create new, self-replicating artificial life forms—experiments that pose implications for worker safety, public health and environmental safety. A collaboration of university and industry, the SBI enterprise is designed to catapult basic research into profit making applications. From a
press release, “SBI will be an important link in a constellation of research centers focused on synthetic biology at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), both of which have made the field a research priority. SBI is unique in its planned collaborations with leading companies, designed to translate leading research on biological systems and organisms efficiently into processes, products, and technologies.”
Where this extensive new research will take place is a matter of some speculation. LBNL, managed by U.C. Berkeley but funded by the Department of Energy, is seeking to...
Related Articles
By Greg Allen, NPR | 01.26.2024
MIAMI — In the age-old war of human versus mosquitoes, the bugs have been winning.
At least 700,000 people die every year from mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue, West Nile and yellow fever.
Global trade and climate change...
By Michael Marshall, Nature | 01.09.2024
Part of the image collection of the
International Rice Research Institute (IRRI)
In the space of just a few years, Jiayang Li is trying to achieve something that once took people centuries. He wants to turn a wild rice species...
By GMWatch Contributors, GMWatch | 11.21.2023
Open letter to UK's FSA is published
A group of experts representing business, farming, certification, academia, science and civil society have lodged a formal complaint against the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA), raising serious concerns about its public consultation process...
By Claire Robinson, GMWatch | 10.19.2023
Chicken farm by "L214 - éthique et animaux"
from Wiki Commons, licensed under CC by 3.0.
Scientists at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute — the animal research centre where Dolly the sheep was created — have used...