Synbiosafe

synth-ethic presents art work related to Synthetic Biology. May 14th to June 26th 2011, Vienna, Austria

The Bio:Fiction festival provides information and dialogue about synthetic biology in an attractive, factual and entertaining way.

US Presidential Bioethics Commission releases report on synthetic biology on December 16th , 2010.

The US Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will hold its first meeting on July 8-9 in Washington, DC.  The primary topic is synthetic biology. 

The European Science Foundation has recently decided to fund five European synthetic biology projects for the next three years.

One of the goals in synthetic biology is to design an orthogonal chromosome different from DNA and RNA, termed XNA for xeno nucleic acids. Xenobiological systems like XNA are ‘‘invisible’’ to natural biological systems, which means they could be the ultimate biosafety tool.

The April issue of Bioessays features a selection of scientific papers on synthetic biology, including an article by Markus Schmidt on biosafety issues and alternative biochemistries, so called "Xenobiology".

On 18-19 March 2010, in Brussels, the European Commission's Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) is organising a workshop on synthetic biology.

On 20 January 2010, in Beijing, Markus Schmidt (IDC, Austria) and Wei Wei (IBCAS, China) will organise a workshop regarding biosafety and risk assessment needs of synthetic biology in Europe and China.

Produced and directed by Markus Schmidt and Camillo Meinhart, the 38 minutes documentary film 'SYNBIOSAFE: Synthetic Biology and its Safety and Ethical Aspects' has been released October 2009.

The Special Issue: Societal Aspects of Synthetic Biology was Guest Edited by Markus Schmidt in the Journal Systems and Synthetic Biology. The articles are Open Choice, hence freely available.

In the April issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology Synbiosafe team members shade light on the how European synthetic biologists view the issue of synbio and ethics. 

The 2008 November issue of the German "Spektrum der Wissenschaften" ran an interview with SYNBIOSAFE coordinator Markus Schmidt on biosafety issues in synthetic biology.

On November 15, 2008, an international workshop on the societal and ethical aspects of synthetic biology took place at the Organisation for International Dialogue and Conflict Management (IDC), in Vienna, Austria.

In Austria a 2 year project has started investigating communication processes regarding synthetic biology, involving scientists, the media and the public.