The Food Warden: An Exploration of Issues in Distributing Responsibilities for Safe-by-Design Synthetic Biology Applications

Differences in barriers for controlled learning about safety between biotechnology and chemistry

In contrast to chemical industry, biotechnology is still not competitive for the production of chemicals, materials, and biofuels. Here, the authors discuss the underlying reasons and propose to address the problem through regulatory changes and risk management.

Ethics in Design and Implementation of Technologies for Workplace Health Promotion: A Call for Discussion

Aim: This study aims to initiate discussion on the ethical issues surrounding the development and implementation of technologies for workplace health promotion. We believe this is a neglected topic and such a complex field of study that we cannot come up with solutions easily or quickly. Therefore, this study is the starting point of a discussion about the ethics of and the need for policies around technologies for workplace health promotion. Method: Based on a literature review, the present study outlines current knowledge of ethical issues in research, development, and implementation of technologies in the workplace. Specifically, the focus is on two ethical issues that play an important role in the worker-employer relation: privacy and autonomy. Application: Two cases indicative for a multidisciplinary project aimed at developing and evaluating sensor and intervention technologies that contribute to keeping ageing workers healthy and effectively employable are explored. A context-specific approach of ethics is used to investigate ethical issues during the development and implementation of sensor and intervention technologies. It is a holistic approach toward the diverse field of participants and stakeholders, and the diversity in perceptions of relevant values, depending on their respective professional languages. Discussion: The results show how protecting the privacy and autonomy of workers cannot be seen as stand-alone issues, but, rather, there is interplay between these values, the work context, and the responsibilities of workers and employers. Consequently, technologies in this research project are designed to improve worker conscientious autonomy, while concurrently creating balance between privacy and health, and assigning responsibilities to appropriate stakeholders. Conclusion: Focusing on a contextual conceptualisation of the ethical principles in the design and implementation of digital health technologies helps to avoid compartmentalization, out-of-context generalisation, and neglect of identifying responsibilities. Although it is a long reiterative process in which all stakeholders need to be included in order to assess all ethical issues sufficiently, this process is crucial to achieving the intended goal of a technology. Having laid out the landscape and problems of ethics around technologies for workplace health promotion, we believe policies and standards, and a very overdue discussion about these, are needed.

Safe-by-Design in Engineering: An Overview and Comparative Analysis of Engineering Disciplines

In this paper, we provide an overview of how Safe-by-Design is conceived and applied in practice in a large number of engineering disciplines. We discuss the differences, commonalities, and possibilities for mutual learning found in those practices and identify several ways of putting those disciplinary outlooks in perspective. The considered engineering disciplines in the order of historically grown technologies are construction engineering, chemical engineering, aerospace engineering, urban engineering, software engineering, bio-engineering, nano-engineering, and finally cyber space engineering. Each discipline is briefly introduced, the technology at issue is described, the relevant or dominant hazards are examined, the social challenge(s) are observed, and the relevant developments in the field are described. Within each discipline the risk management strategies, the design principles promoting safety or safety awareness, and associated methods or tools are discussed. Possible dilemmas that the designers in the discipline face are highlighted. Each discipline is concluded by discussing the opportunities and bottlenecks in addressing safety. Commonalities and differences between the engineering disciplines are investigated, specifically on the design strategies for which empirical data have been collected. We argue that Safe-by-Design is best considered as a specific elaboration of Responsible Research and Innovation, with an explicit focus on safety in relation to other important values in engineering such as well-being, sustainability, equity, and affordability. Safe-by-Design provides for an intellectual venue where social science and the humanities (SSH) collaborate on technological developments and innovation by helping to proactively incorporate safety considerations into engineering practices, while navigating between the extremes of technological optimism and disproportionate precaution. As such, Safe-by-Design is also a practical tool for policymakers and risk assessors that helps shape governance arrangements for accommodating and incentivizing safety, while fully acknowledging uncertainty.

Responsible Learning About Risks Arising from Emerging Biotechnologies

Genetic engineering techniques (e.g., CRISPR-Cas) have led to an increase in biotechnological developments, possibly leading to uncertain risks. The European Union aims to anticipate these by embedding the Precautionary Principle in its regulation for risk management. This principle revolves around taking preventive action in the face of uncertainty and provides guidelines to take precautionary measures when dealing with important values such as health or environmental safety. However, when dealing with 'new' technologies, it can be hard for risk managers to estimate the societal or environmental consequences of a biotechnology that might arise once introduced or embedded in society due to that these sometimes do not comply with the established norms within risk assessment. When there is insufficient knowledge, stakeholders active in early developmental stages (e.g., researchers) could provide necessary knowledge by conducting research specifically devoted to what these unknown risks could entail. In theory, the Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach could enable such a controlled learning environment to gradually identify what these uncertain risks are, to which we refer as responsible learning. In this paper, we argue that three conditions need to be present to enable such an environment: (1) regulatory flexibility, (2) co-responsibility between researchers and regulators, and (3) openness towards all stakeholders. If one of these conditions would not be present, the SbD approach cannot be implemented to its fullest potential, thereby limiting an environment for responsible learning and possibly leaving current policy behind to anticipate uncertain risks.

Value Conflicts in Designing for Safety: Distinguishing Applications of Safe-by-Design and the Inherent Safety Principles

Although both the Inherent Safety Principles (ISPs) and the Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach revolve around the central value of safety, they have a slightly different focus in terms of developing add-on features or considering initial design choices. This paper examines the differences between these approaches and analyses which approach is more suitable for a specific type of research—fundamental or applied. By applying the ISPs and SbD to a case study focusing on miniaturized processes using Hydrogen Cyanide, we find that both approaches encounter internal value-conflicts and suffer from external barriers, or lock-ins, which hinder implementation of safety measures. By applying the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), we gain insight in the matureness of a technology (thereby distinguishing fundamental and applied research) and the extent of lock-ins being present. We conclude that the ISPs are better able to deal with lock-ins, which are more common in applied research stages, as this approach provides guidelines for add-on safety measures. Fundamental research is not subject to lock-ins yet, and therefore SbD would be a more suitable approach. Lastly, application of either approach should not be associated with a specific field of interest, but instead with associated known or uncertain risks.

Build a Sustainable Vaccines Industry with Synthetic Biology

The vaccines industry has not changed appreciably in decades regarding technology, and has struggled to remain viable, with large companies withdrawing from production. Meanwhile, there has been no let-up in outbreaks of viral disease, at a time when the biopharmaceuticals industry is discussing downsizing. The distributed manufacturing model aligns well with this, and the advent of synthetic biology promises much in terms of vaccine design. Biofoundries separate design from manufacturing, a hallmark of modern engineering. Once designed in a biofoundry, digital code can be transferred to a small-scale manufacturing facility close to the point of care, rather than physically transferring cold-chain-dependent vaccine. Thus, biofoundries and distributed manufacturing have the potential to open up a new era of biomanufacturing, one based on digital biology and information systems. This seems a better model for tackling future outbreaks and pandemics.

Safe-by-Design: Stakeholders' Perceptions and Expectations of How to Deal with Uncertain Risks of Emerging Biotechnologies in the Netherlands

Advanced gene editing techniques such as Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)/Cas have increased the pace of developments in the field of industrial biotechnology. Such techniques imply new possibilities when working with living organisms, possibly leading to uncertain risks. In the Netherlands, current policy fails to address these uncertain risks because risk classification is determined process-wise (i.e., genetically modified organism [GMO] and non-GMO), there is a strong focus on quantifiable risks, and the linearity within current governance (science-policy-society) hinders iterative communication between stakeholders, leaving limited room to anticipate uncertainties at an early stage of development. A suggested concept to overcome these shortcomings is the Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach, which, theoretically, allows stakeholders to iteratively incorporate safety measures throughout a technology's development process, creating a dynamic environment for the anticipation of uncertain risks. Although this concept originates from chemical engineering and is already widely applied in nanotechnology, for the field of biotechnology, there is no agreed upon definition yet. To explore the possibilities of SbD for future governance of biotechnology, we should gain insight in how various stakeholders perceive notions of risk, safety, and inherent safety, and what this implies for the applicability of SbD for risk governance concerning industrial biotechnology. Our empirical research reveals three main themes: (1) diverging expectations with regard to safety and risks, and to establish an acceptable level of risk; (2) different applications of SbD and inherent safety, namely, product- and process-wise; and (3) unclarity in allocating responsibilities to stakeholders in the development process of a biotechnology and within society.