Team:Freiburg/Safety/safety

Safety

At the beginning of our project it was deliberately intended just to work on a transient form because we first wanted to test if it is possible to regulate and control endogenous processes in this way and if we could observe off target effects. Therefore we have never integrated our dCas9 construct stably into the genome and did not have to use difficult controllable retroviruses. This means we did not generate genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and since our uniCAS toolkit is meant as tool for laboratory work, there is no reason to release modified organisms. Also our project doesn’t involve expression of toxins or pathogenic factors what minimizes risks.

Our main protein, dCas9 and its related RNAs, are originating from a pathogen (Streptococcus pyogenes). This bacterium is classified, according to German regulations, to be safety level 2. As we are only dealing with a the protein and RNAs, which are not described as a part of any pathogenic or toxic factor of this bacterium, they can be considered as harmless. This is in accordance to German regulations for biotechnology and the German safety regulations. An up-scale of this system would not raise any additional dangers and could be performed under S1 conditions as our small-scale approaches. This is also in accordance to German safety regulations. For a detailed look on our Safety aspects, please have a look on our safety page, where you can find our safety forms.

The consulted experts all agreed that

“[…] even when considering the highest risks, it is not an alternative to stop research [...]“ (Dr. Jochen Holzschuh).

He continues

„[...] as a scientist who creates a certain knowledge, responsibility does not stop at the end of his or her own work - instead, the duty of observing the usage of this knowledge by other scientists arises.“

This means that on the one hand scientists are responsible to watch scientific development but also stay in dialog with society and politics about their research.

Taking a more objective view on our own project, we agree with Dr. Jochen Holzschuh’s opinion:

“[…] moral and safety judgements always need to be developed with non-involved experts […].”

For a detailed overview about our expert interviews see the quotations on our expert opinion site.

There have been different methods for regulation of genes before and we did not create a new field of research which would have implied new safety issues. But nevertheless we engineered the CRISPR/Cas system, and thereby give the opportunity for a more complex gene regulation because it is now possible to target different DNA sites simultaneously and therefore regulate multiple genes at once. Still Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Hess confirmed that:

“[…] considering ethics and biosafety: it’s „just“ another tool to do things that have been done before, expect for the complexity […]”.

One question in our interviews dealt with the problem which security aspects can be seen in regard to laboratory or environment while using our toolkit. Most of the experts emphasized that we did not use any viruses or stable transductions as described above. For more information about the ethical background of our project and the expert opinions on that controversial topic, especially the medical point of view, visit our ethic page.