US report sets ground rules for artificial life : Nature News

This seems to be good news as Synthetic Biology is the next logical step in biological research. Now, whether it will be used for medicinal and related healing purposes as I hope it will be, or ‘otherwise’, still remains to be seen.

And while there are those that think that the Presidential Commission does not go far enough in establishing ‘rules of conduct’ for the scientists engaged in this research so far, at least an attempt is being made which recognizes that Science has reached the point where such an achievement is not only possible within the level and scope of contemporary scientific knowledge, but that it warrants the establishment of what I see are the beginnings of the regulatory framework that this emerging field will need to foresee and prevent its unethical applications by the potentially unscrupulous.

The only potential weak link in this ‘embryonic’ regulatory framework is how to construct a monitoring system that doesn’t ‘suffocate’ and second-guess the researchers themselves while still allowing them the ‘freedom of direction’ in the laboratory that research of this nature will invariably need in order to develop and mature.