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Bioethics at iGEM
 Quick summary of bioethicsWhat is bioethics? It is the ethical discussion relevant to biological researches. How can we apply this in synthetic biology? This is a question without a definite answer. Therefore, we will present you a quick summary of the milestones in the history of bioethics in Synthetic Biology to get you started on the thoughts. | Data collection and sharingAs scientists start to value opinion from the public more and more, data collection and data sharing play important roles and are raising ethical questions for iGEMers. Here, we focus on the discussion related to human sample collection and online data sharing, which can include anything from answers to questionnaires to genetic information. | Informed consentI don’t know about you, but for a long time, informed consent was a term I never thought about incurring in my career as bioengineer. However, as I study more and more about synthetic biology, I realized it is almost the opposite. With the growth of crowdsourcing, comes the need and the rights for the public to know, which is the purpose of informed consent. |
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PatentabilitySynthetic biology is a field that continuely challenges current patent laws. It would be too hard to summarize the entire argument. We will introduce you to the two most relevant aspects: Can you patent something you discover during iGEM? And what should you do if you want to use any patented parts for your design? | Open access and bioterrorismOpen Access means unrestricted online access to information and it is primarily intended for scholarly research. Authors can provide Open Access to their publications by self-archiving their journal articles in an open access repository, known as “green” open access, or by publishing in an open access journal, known as “golden” open access. The greatest advantange is that any research article published under Open Access is accessible to anyone that has internet. |
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