Synthetic Society: Difference between revisions
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===Overview=== | ===Overview=== | ||
The MIT / Boston-area ''' ''Synthetic Society'' | The MIT / Boston-area ''' ''Synthetic Society Working Group'' ''' (SSWG) is an ad hoc collection of individuals who are working to directly address societal issues embedded and surrounding the emerging field of synthetic biology. Everybody is welcome to participate either via contributions to the pages hosted on this wiki or by visiting Boston for a meeting. At MIT, participants include scientists and engineers engaged in synthetic biology research and scholars expert in considering societal issues associated with emerging technologies. The primary goal of the SSWG is to make unbiased progress on the issues. A secondary goal of the SSWG is to collect and organize resources in order to faciliate widespread understanding and consideration of the issues. | ||
===Background=== | ===Background=== | ||
Revision as of 08:24, 3 January 2006
Overview
The MIT / Boston-area Synthetic Society Working Group (SSWG) is an ad hoc collection of individuals who are working to directly address societal issues embedded and surrounding the emerging field of synthetic biology. Everybody is welcome to participate either via contributions to the pages hosted on this wiki or by visiting Boston for a meeting. At MIT, participants include scientists and engineers engaged in synthetic biology research and scholars expert in considering societal issues associated with emerging technologies. The primary goal of the SSWG is to make unbiased progress on the issues. A secondary goal of the SSWG is to collect and organize resources in order to faciliate widespread understanding and consideration of the issues.
Background
In the context of these discussions synthetic biology refers to (i) the design and construction of new biological parts, devices, and systems and (ii) the re-design of existing, natural biological systems for useful purposes. For now, we are primarily interested in new, engineered biological systems that are encoded via standard four-base DNA (i.e., A, T, C, G). This "definition" of synthetic biology leaves out certain aspects of the work (e.g., understanding the origins of life by re-creating a cell from raw chemicals in the lab).
