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Team:Paris Bettencourt/Human Practice/Technology Transfer
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Revision as of 11:34, 4 October 2013
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new challenges to synthetic biology
As we began working on tuberculosis, we started to raise some concerns on the possible impact of our project “outside” the iGEM community. Since part of our work consisted in designing a bacterial vector for treating tuberculosis, we started wondering how this new item of technology could be possibly translated into an actual therapy. Besides ordinary safety concerns, we had to take into account the fact that tuberculosis epidemics are particularly widespread in the so-called “developing” and “emergent” countries, whereas they are relatively rare in the “developed” ones. According to the WHO sponsored Global Plan to Stop TB, whereas tuberculosis affects all countries around the world, 85% of cases occur in Africa (30%) and Asia (55%), while India and China alone represent 35%. This means
that thinking about possible applications of our genetically engineered bio-machine consists precisely in raising the question of how synthetic biology could be subject to “technology transfer” from developed countries to developing ones.
Moreover, as Allison S. Rhines points out in an excellent review article,
the global TB epidemic is characterized by significant differences in prevalence between men and women. That rates of TB are much higher among men than women in large areas of the world has been extensively documented. Nevertheless, some scholars believe that these differences are in part, if not wholly, due to the effects of confounding variables such as differential access to care, which would bias case reporting (REF2)
This observation highlights the fact that any technology transfer to developing countries targeting tuberculosis diagnosis and treatment cannot be “gender insensitive”. Women living in countries plagued by tuberculosis epidemics have specific needs and problems, which are to be explicitly addressed. This paper is therefore a modest contribution to a discussion on the problems raised by biotechnology transfer in the broader context of development policies and gender inequality.
As it is widely known, a Millennium Summit was held under the aegis of the United Nations in 2000. The main achievement of this meeting has consisted in setting a global agenda for improving living standards worldwide through cooperation between developed and developing countries. Such agenda entails eight goals, ranging from eradicating extreme poverty and hunger to establishing a global partnership for development. Notably, the third of these goals aims at “promoting gender equality and empowering women” by “eliminating gender disparity in all levels of education no later than 2015”.
In order to set a general framework for action and to identify the best strategies for helping developing countries achieve the “Millennium goals”, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan charged ten task forces with issuing a report each. All those task forces were meant to address one main area of concern, by representing different points of view (various UN agencies, universities and research centres, NGOs and other private or public groups). In particular, one task force was charged with tackling the question of gender equality in education and society. The task of empowering women has therefore been investigated in tight association with the one of ensuring high-level primary and secondary education to all children. This mere fact, in our opinion, highlights the importance of engaging women in participating actively to any cooperation program targeting their own countries. Furthermore, it highlights the importance that the suggestions advanced by the UN task force on gender equality bear for the synthetic biology community in order for it to better understand the issue of technology transfer.
The intimate connection between gender inequality and the constraints undermining “the potential to reduce poverty and achieve high levels of well-being in societies around the world” is clearly stated by the report’s authors in their executive summary. However, as they argue further, gender inequality lies within the very fabric of society (“entrenched attitudes, societal institutions and market forces”), since the “norms” establishing both obligations and rights of women and men are very basic social norms, built on the innate biological distinction between females and males. Gender inequality is thus rooted not only in education, but in all other facets of society as well.
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