Ethics and synthetics: Synthetic biology is fast becoming the guinea pi for merging social and natural sciences

摘要

IT NEVER takes long for discussions about synthetic biology to get onto Frankenstein. For a branch of science that merges engineering with biology, that's no surprise. The question is: which Frankenstein? Are we talking about James Whale's movie, with a monster assembled from body parts, or Mary Shelley's book, with a creature fashioned from inanimate material but imbued with life?