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Keep technology under control vs Save the planet

Biologist George Church is making forms of life that could never arise naturally. He and his team are changing the genetic code of E. coli bacteria used in drug manufacture so as to make them immune to all viruses: a giant step forward for the industry. But the very immunity that serves us so well in a vat in the lab could come back to bite us if those bacteria wound up in our bodies.

Church鈥檚 team at Harvard University is just one of hundreds around the world creating 鈥渟ynthetic life鈥�, some kinds meant for labs and factories, others for farms. Can we really control these creations? Can we ensure they remain where we want them? Or do the potential risks to us and to wildlife mean it would be better not to meddle with synthetic life at all?

鈥淏iocontainment is our number one priority,鈥� Church told New Scientist last year when he unveiled his latest creation. To ensure his recoded organisms cannot go feral, he has altered them so they are dependent on chemicals that don鈥檛 occur naturally.

Others want to go much further, creating forms of life based on molecules not used by any other organism. With an entirely different biochemistry, such truly synthetic life would pose little risk 鈥� at least in theory.

But less alien forms of synthetic life are already common. Many drugs are now produced by modified cells, for instance, and more than a tenth of arable land is planted with genetically modified crops.

Such technology is still in its infancy, but the potential benefits are huge. For instance, creating plants better at photosynthesising would let us grow more food on less land. That means more land could be set aside for wildlife, or used for capturing carbon (see 鈥�The ethics issue: Should we geoengineer the planet?鈥�). This could be crucial in a world where land is in increasingly short supply.

But plants that can capture more of the sun鈥檚 energy would be able to outcompete ordinary ones. Supercrops that combine several beneficial traits, such as enhanced photosynthesis, and resistance to salt, droughts, viruses and pests, would be even more likely to turn into rogue superweeds.

And our track record on biosafety is not exactly reassuring. Genetically modified plants and products keep being found in places they are not meant to be, and lab accidents are still distressingly commonplace.

In an ideal world, perhaps it might be better not to take the risk. But in our world, with looming crises from population growth to climate change, it looks as if we have no choice.

If we lose that gamble and synthetic life does take over the world, who knows: it might do a better job of caring for the planet than we have.

This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淪hould we鈥� Release synthetic life forms into the wild?鈥�