Zum Hauptinhalt springen Zur Suche springen Zur Hauptnavigation springen
Beschreibung

Synthetic biology is the technique that enables us not just to read and edit but also write DNA to program living biological structures as though they were tiny computers. Unlike cloning Dolly the sheep-which cut and copied existing genetic material-the future of synthetic biology might be something like an app store, where you could download and add new capabilities into any cell, microbe, plant, or animal.

This breakthrough science has the potential to mitigate, perhaps solve, humanity's immediate and longer-term existential challenges: climate change; the feeding, clothing, housing, and caring for billions of humans; fighting the next viral outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic; old age as a treatable pathology; bringing back extinct animals.

It could also be anarchic and socially destructive. With our governing structures created in an era before startling advances in technology, we are not prepared for a future in which life could be manipulated or programmed.

As futurist Amy Webb and synthetic biologist Andrew Hessel show in this book, within the next decade, we will need to make important decisions: whether to program novel viruses to fight diseases, what genetic privacy will look like, who will "own" living organisms, how companies should earn revenue from engineered cells, and how to contain a synthetic organism in a lab. The Genesis Machine? provides the background for us to understand and grapple with these issues, and think through the religious, philosophical, and ethical implications for the future.

Synthetic biology is the technique that enables us not just to read and edit but also write DNA to program living biological structures as though they were tiny computers. Unlike cloning Dolly the sheep-which cut and copied existing genetic material-the future of synthetic biology might be something like an app store, where you could download and add new capabilities into any cell, microbe, plant, or animal.

This breakthrough science has the potential to mitigate, perhaps solve, humanity's immediate and longer-term existential challenges: climate change; the feeding, clothing, housing, and caring for billions of humans; fighting the next viral outbreak before it becomes a global pandemic; old age as a treatable pathology; bringing back extinct animals.

It could also be anarchic and socially destructive. With our governing structures created in an era before startling advances in technology, we are not prepared for a future in which life could be manipulated or programmed.

As futurist Amy Webb and synthetic biologist Andrew Hessel show in this book, within the next decade, we will need to make important decisions: whether to program novel viruses to fight diseases, what genetic privacy will look like, who will "own" living organisms, how companies should earn revenue from engineered cells, and how to contain a synthetic organism in a lab. The Genesis Machine? provides the background for us to understand and grapple with these issues, and think through the religious, philosophical, and ethical implications for the future.

Über den Autor
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist, CEO of Future Today Strategy Group (FTSG) and a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business. Amy was recognized as the #4 most influential management thinker in the world by Thinkers50, a biannual ranking of global business thinkers and won the 2017 Thinkers50 Radar Award for The Signals Are Talking. She is the award-winning author of The Big Nine.

Andrew Hessel, a pioneer and expert in synthetic biology, is the cofounder of Humane Genomics, an early-stage company developing synthetic viruses to target and destroy human cancers. He is also the cofounder and chairman of the Center of Excellence for Engineering Biology and the Genome Project, the international scientific effort to engineer large genomes, including the human genome. He is a former distinguished research scientist at Autodesk Life Sciences.
Details
Erscheinungsjahr: 2023
Genre: Importe, Soziologie
Rubrik: Wissenschaften
Medium: Taschenbuch
Inhalt: Kartoniert / Broschiert
ISBN-13: 9781541797925
ISBN-10: 1541797922
Sprache: Englisch
Einband: Kartoniert / Broschiert
Autor: Webb, Amy
Hessel, Andrew
Hersteller: PublicAffairs
Verantwortliche Person für die EU: Libri GmbH, Europaallee 1, D-36244 Bad Hersfeld, gpsr@libri.de
Maße: 210 x 140 x 22 mm
Von/Mit: Amy Webb (u. a.)
Erscheinungsdatum: 10.10.2023
Gewicht: 0,507 kg
Artikel-ID: 126586650

Ähnliche Produkte