Biosecurity for Synthetic Biology and Emerging Biotechnologies: Critical Challenges for Governance

Synthetic biology uses engineering-based modeling and building techniques to modify existing organisms and microbes or to construct them from scratch. The rate of development and research related to synthetic biology for both industry and academia has increased over the past two decades (Ahteensuu 2017), with applications in medicine (new vaccines, delivery of therapeutics, and treatments), energy (biofuels), environmental remediation, food production, and general industry (detergents, adhesives, perfumes) (Evans and Selgelid 2015; Gronvall 2015).