hreats (i.e., robots, new artificial bacteria) are considered, biosafety precautions are generally not sufficient. The new field of biosecurity addresses these complex threats.
Typically, institutions that experiment with or create potentially harmful biological material will have a committee or board of supervisors that is in charge of the institution's biosafety. They create and monitor the biosafety standards that must be met by labs in order to prevent the accidental release of potentially destructive biological material.
Biosafety in synthetic biology
With the potential future creation of man-made unicellular organisms, some are beginning to consider the effect that these organisms will have on biomass already present. Scientists estimate that within the next few decades, organism design will be sophisticated enough to accomplish tasks such as creating biofuels and lowering the levels of harmful substances in the atmosphere. Scientist that favor the development of synthetic biology claim that the use of biosafety mechanisms such as suicide genes and nutrient dependencies will ensure the organisms cannot survive outside of the lab setting in which they were originally created. Organizations like the ETC Group argue that regulations should control the creation of organisms that could potentially harm existing life. They also argue that the development of these organisms will simply shift the consumption of petroleum to the utilization of biomass in order to create energy. These organisms can harm existing life by affecting the prey/predator food chain, reproduction between species, as well as competition against other species (species at risk, or act as an invasive species). Synthetic vaccines are now being produced in the lab. These have caused a lot of excitement in the pharmaceutical industry as they will be cheaper to produce, allow quicker production, as well enhance the knowledge of virology and immunology.
- Biosafety and the environment: An introduction to the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (PDF). GE.03-01836/E. United Nations Environment Programme. (undated). p. 8. Check date values in:
- Serrano, Luis. "Molecular Systems Biology". Nature.
- Collins, James. "Synthetic Biology: Bits and pieces come to life". Nature 483 (7387): S8–S10. doi:10.1038/483S8a. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- "First Self-Replicating Synthetic Bacterial Cell". J. Craig Venter Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2012.
- Silvia Ribeiro, Ribeiro (December 3, 2010). "News Release: Biofuels, Bioenergy and Biochar: False Solutions Lead to Land-Grabbing". Retrieved 12 April 2012.
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- WHO Biosafety Programme
- CDC Biosafety pages
- The Sunshine Project: Nonprofit Laboratory Biosafety Watchdog
- International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB): Biosafety pages
- Greenpeace safe trade campaign
- American Biological Safety Association
- Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories
- Program for Biosafety Systems US-funded program
- Food Security and Ag-Biotech News — balanced global news on biosafety issues in agriculture
- GMO Safety - Information about research projects on the biological safety of genetically modified plants.
- Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) - Forschungsstelle für Brandschutztechnik: Research on fire protection and extinguishing systems in microbiological and genetic engineering laboratories.
- COST Action FP0905 Biosafety of forest transgenic trees
- Biosafety Scanner
- The 2013 International Conference on Biocontainment Facilities
- The 2014 International Conference on Biocontainment Facilities
- eBook Reference: Management Principles for Building and Operating Biocontainment Facilities (Kindle Edition)
- MolluSCAN eye website designed by the CNRS and the University of Bordeaux, France. Online biomonitoring of water quality by a 24/7 record of various bivalve molluscs' behavior and physiology worldwide (biological rhythms, growth rate, spawning, daily behavior)