Biomodifying the 'natural':From Adaptive Regulation to Adaptive Societal Governance

Abstract

Biomodifying technologies-such as gene editing, induced pluripotent stem cells, and bioprinting-are being developed for a wide range of applications, from pest control to lab-grown meat. In medicine, regulators have responded to the challenge of evaluating modified 'natural' material as a therapeutic 'product' by introducing more flexible assessment schemes. Attempts have also been made to engage stakeholders across the globe on the acceptable parameters for these technologies, particularly in the case of gene editing. Regulatory flexibility and stakeholder engagement are important, but a broader perspective is also needed to respond to the potential disruption of biomodification. Our case-study technologies problematize basic ideas-such as 'nature', 'product', and 'donation'-that underpin the legal categories used to regulate biotechnology. Where such foundational concepts are rendered uncertain, a socially responsive and sustainable solution would involve exploring evolutions in these concepts across different societies. We suggest that the global observatory model is a good starting point for this 'Adaptive Societal Governance' approach, in which a self-organizing network of scholars and interested parties could carry out the multi-modal (meta)analyses needed to understand societal constructions of ideas inherent to our understanding of 'life'.

Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/jlb/lsac018
Divisions: College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Sociology and Policy
College of Business and Social Sciences
College of Business and Social Sciences > School of Social Sciences & Humanities > Centre for Health and Society
Additional Information: © The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Duke University School of Law, Harvard Law School, Oxford University Press, and Stanford Law School. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Uncontrolled Keywords: Adaptive Governance,regenerative medicine,synthetic biology,Medicine (miscellaneous),Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology (miscellaneous),Law
Publication ISSN: 2053-9711
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2024 09:05
Date Deposited: 12 Sep 2023 12:26
Full Text Link:
Related URLs: http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL)
https://academi ... 0866?login=true (Publisher URL)
PURE Output Type: Article
Published Date: 2022-06-30
Accepted Date: 2022-01-28
Authors: Mourby, Miranda
Bell, Jessica
Morrison, Michael
Faulkner, Alex
Li, Phoebe
Bicudo, Edison
Webster, Andrew
Kaye, Jane

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