Next Colloquium: Tuesday, 9/15
|
|
Speaker: Sarah Richardson, PhD, CEO at Microbyre
Website | Twitter @TheGermWrangler, @microbyre
|
|
★ WINNER: BEST ABSTRACT
Humans practically have been domesticating organisms since before recorded memory. Why do a job when you can just pay room and board for someone else to do it? Over hundreds and hundreds of years we have recognized the innate skills of our planetary cohabitants, and then made them offers they couldn’t refuse. The people who gave us cattle, corn, and cats worked for centuries without the title they deserve: Bioengineer. Their tool was domestication, and it was the most ambitious and successful genetic modification program in human history.
Why have we stopped this success parade at microbes? There is one bacteria safe enough for American high-schoolers to “train,” and a handful more an expert could work with, and then THOUSANDS more that we depend on for our very existence but do not grow in the laboratory - and thus cannot communicate with at all. We have an empty barn, a handful of tame to feral bacteria to press into every biomanufacturing job we dream up. We would never ask a goat to catch and eat barn mice, but we frequently ask E. coli to do all sorts of outlandish things. It is a big lift for a gut microbe with a sweet tooth. It is all too frequently an impossible lift.
A re-examination of the analogies of “synthetic biology” is in order. Question every assumption.
|
|
More Events & Opportunities
|
|
Plant Health: Using Technology to Monitor, Analyze and Treat
Virtual Ag Tech Professional Forum - Wednesday, Sept. 16, 4-5:30 PM via Zoom. REGISTER >
- Speaker - Ron Heiniger, Professor of Crop Science, Cropping Systems Specialist
NC State University, CALS (AgBioFEWS Summer course)
EBRC - Malice Analysis Workshops
September, 2020 | Virtual. REGISTER >
- Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) is hosting several workshops in September to train researchers to critically evaluate the security implications of their research. Pick the workshop time and date that fits your schedule!
CRISPRcon 2020
10 Webinars, 5 Themes, 2 Months, Sept-Oct 2020.
REGISTER for GES Center sessions on Equity, Environment & Agriculture:
- October 13: Risk governance in gene editing and food: Intersections of safety and equity
- October 15: Gene editing and climate justice: Adaptation, mitigation, and conservation strategies in a changing world
Gene Editing in Agriculture and Food: Social Concerns, Public Engagement and Governance
October 20-21, 12-4 PM ET. REGISTER >
- Jennifer Kuzma speaking on 10/20 on "Unpacking and Evaluating Regulatory Policy Pathways for Gene-edited Agricultural Products"
|
|
Podcast, Sept. 2, 2020
Our world is influenced constantly by forces operating on small scales beyond what we can see with our naked eyes. New advances in nanotechnology offer potential promise for the future as well as raising concerns for some. On this episode, we talk with Khara Grieger of North Carolina State University about her work on public understanding of nanotechnology innovations for food production. Listen >
|
|
|
Huang, Y., Li, W., Gao, J., Wang, F., Yang, W., Han, L., Lin, D., Min, B., Zhi, Y., Grieger, K., Yao, J. Science of the Total Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.142133.
Roberts, P, Herkert, J and Kuzma, J. 2020. Elem Sci Anth, 8(1): 47. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/elementa.446 Download PDF
Saia, S., Nelson, N., Huseth, A., Grieger, K., Reich, B. Ecological Modelling, 435: 109257. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2020.109257
Cummings, CL, Rosenthal, S., and Kong, W. (2020). Risk Analysis. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.13573
See all GES Faculty Publications at go.ncsu.edu/ges-pubs
|
|
|
