What-Syn-a-Name?

He was looking quite lost. An eminent scientist and UN delegate was stumbling over the meaning of a term that has been the subject of recent international debates: “synthetic biology.” Often called “extreme genetic engineering,” synthetic biology usually refers to new genetic engineering approaches that give technicians exacting control over an organism’s genome. But it’s not quite that easy.

“For several years I’ve been discussing and promoting the importance of assessing synthetic biology,” he explained at the UN Convention on Biodiversity’s scientific negotiations (SBSTTA 18) in Montreal. “Now I find myself not so sure what it even means”.

That same day, “green” laundry detergent maker Ecover responded to a campaign led by environmental and consumer groups demanding that the company stop using algal oil produced using synthetically modified organisms. Ecover, which had been identified a few weeks earlier by the New York Times
as the first consumer brand to openly use a synthetic biology-derived ingredient, now flatly denied doing any such thing.

In the New York Times article and previous conversations, the company had seemed comfortable using the...