Rethinking Containment: Released Genetically Engineered Organisms

Few areas of science have drawn the same degree of attention and controversy as the environmental release of genetically engineered (GE) organisms. Organized groups, including environmental NGOs, farmers’ associations, scientific societies and federal agencies, have contested issues of risks and safety for the past four decades. With growing interest and investment in a US bioeconomy, new types of GE organisms are being designed for release in open environments. This includes GE crops, direct-to-consumer probiotics, and organisms intended for environmental applications.

How to appropriately manage GE organisms in open environments is a longstanding conversation. Traditional approaches to biosafety and biosecurity have focused on technological containment, or maintaining separation between GE organisms and the wider world. In this seminar, we make the case for a broader lens – social containment – to be included in discussions about the deployment of GE organisms. Social containment directs our attention to whether and how the cultural, political, legal, and ecological context around a GE organism is successfully held together through its development and deployment.

We present the findings from an NSF-funded study where we use the lens of social containment to tell the stories of 11 GE organisms designed for release in the US. The cases cover historical and contemporary examples, a variety of GE microbes, plants, insects and animals, and different application contexts. Through these stories, we show how technological, social, spatiotemporal and ecological considerations come together to smooth or disrupt the development process. We hope to open up ways for researchers and policy practitioners to engage with the full variety of technological and social processes for managing GE organisms.

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