"Biotechnology is a time of new risks and opportunities."
That's the takeaway from a new report from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, which notes that while "the benefits of biotechnology are tangible and obvious to the world," there are also "risks to biotechnological progress"including the possibility that a product "escapes from containment, causing harm to people, animals, or the environment."
The report, titled "Biotechnology Governance in a Time of New Risks and Opportunities," notes that "accidents are also possible if some biotechnology product 'escapes' from containment, causing harm to people, animals, or the environment."
That's especially true now that "synthetic biology tools like CRISPR, which allows for precise gene editing and gene-expression technologies, biotechnology is a more powerful and accessible technology than ever before."
In fact, the report notes, "nations have evolved their own systems to govern laboratories and biotechnologies, and there is no one place at the international level that harmonizes those different approaches."
That's especially true when it comes to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which have their own regulatory systems around the world.
"Still, it remains important to examine how responsible governance could be achieved and to advance the development of Read the Entire Article
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.