Synthetic Biology

ETC GroupCommuniqué de presse20 mai 2010www.etcgroup.org

Synthia est bien vivante et elle est parmi nous : panacée ou boîte de Pandore ?

Alors que Craig Venter annonce avoir réussi à créer la vie en laboratoire, l'ETC Group appelle à un moratoire mondial sur la biologie synthétique.

Dans un article paru aujourd'hui dans la revue Science, l'institut J. Craig Venter et la société Synthetic Genomics Inc. ont annoncé la création, en laboratoire, du premier organisme autoreproducteur dont le génome a été assemblé de toutes pièces au moyen d'une machine. (1) Cet organisme synthétique, dont l'ETC Group avait déjà annoncé la création et qu'il avait baptisé "Synthia" il y a trois ans, va susciter de vives controverses sur la pertinence, sur le plan éthique, de créer la vie artificiellement et sur les implications de la biologie synthétique, qui constitue un domaine encore pratiquement... Read more

News Release - 21st April 2010 - For Immediate Release

 Hands Off Mother Earth!

Civil Society Groups announce new global campaign against geoengineering tests – urge public to join in.

www.handsoffmotherearth.org

Cochabamba Bolivia  - On the eve of UN Mother Earth Day, over sixty national and international organizations today threw their weight behind a common statement launching a global campaign to prevent real world deployment of geoengineering experiments.

Geoengineering refers to large-scale intentional tinkering with the climate and earth systems to counteract global warming. The ‘Hands Off Mother Earth’ campaign (or H.O.M.E. campaign) regards such geoengineering schemes as dangerous and unjust. It is urging individuals and organizations to speak out in opposing them.

“With rich... Read more

News Release Biofuelwatch / ETC Group / Greenpeace

BIOMASS POWER GRAB HIGHLIGHTED AS BIOTECH INDUSTRY MEETS IN MONTREAL

Montreal- July 21 2009 -- As hundreds of delegates gathered for the Sixth Annual Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing at Palais des congrès in Old Montreal, a group of NGOs held an early morning press conference across the street. Greenpeace, ETC Group and Biofuelwatch joined forces to warn that the “green” energy of the biotech industry was mostly hype, that governments should not add to their already generous subsidies of the industry and that the feedstock on which it is all based – so called “biomass” – is neither plentiful nor easily converted into renewable chemicals, plastics and fuels.

Jim Thomas, a researcher from ETC Group, charged that behind the thin, green veneer of clean energy and renewable plastics, Big Bio is, in fact, engaged in a huge industrial power grab:... Read more

Communiqué et avis aux médias

Des ONG dénoncent l’écomarketing des entreprises biotechnologiques « Non aux prétendus remèdes miracles aux changements climatiques »

Montréal, le 16 juillet 2009. Plusieurs organisations environnementales, parmi lesquelles figurent Greenpeace, ETC Group et Biofuelwatch préviennent que le lobby biotechnologique s’apprête à se lancer dans un vaste exercice de relations publiques destiné à faire accepter certaines innovations comme étant des solutions écologiques. La 6e Conférence annuelle sur la biotechnologie industrielle aura lieu au Palais des congrès de Montréal du 19 au 22 juillet prochains.

Pendant la conférence, l’industrie biotechnologie va présenter diverses innovations comme s’il s’agissait de véritables solutions aux... Read more

Press Release and Media Advisory

NGOs Denounce Corporate Greenwashing: ‘No to Dubious Biotech-fixes for Climate Change’

Montreal, 16 July 2009. Several groups including Greenpeace, ETC Group and Biofuelwatch are warning that the biotech lobby will mount a major green-washing public relations exercise during the Sixth Annual Conference on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing that will be held at the Palais de congrès (19-22 July 2009).

During the Conference, the biotech industry will present various untested biotechnology innovations as solutions to climate change. “The biotech industry is seeking massive public and private investment for their untested technologies, whose health and environmental impacts have not been fully examined. Rather than be duped by yet another green mirage, governments should invest in real solutions to climate change and get serious about reducing CO2 emissions and commit to... Read more

Who Owns Nature?

New report warns of corporate concentration, commodification of nature; highlights global resistance grounded in "Food Sovereignty"

ETC Group today releases a 48-page report, "Who Owns Nature?" on corporate concentration in commercial food, farming, health and the strategic push to commodify the planet's remaining natural resources.

In a world where market research is becoming increasingly proprietary and pricey, ETC Group's report names names, discloses market share and provides top 10 industry rankings up and down the corporate food chain. Not all the corporations identified in ETC Group's new report are household names, but collectively they control a staggering share of the commercial products found on industrial farms, in our refrigerators and medicine cabinets.

An international advocacy... Read more

Who Owns Nature?

In this 100th issue of the ETC Communiqué we update Oligopoly, Inc. – our ongoing series tracking corporate concentration in the life industry. We also analyze the past three decades of agribusiness efforts to monopolize the 24% of living nature that has been commodified, and expose a new strategy to capture the remaining three-quarters that has, until now, remained beyond the market economy.

À qui appartient la nature?

Pouvoir des grandes sociétés et ultime frontière de la marchandisation du vivant

Problèmes, obsessions et occasions : une préface

TIl y a trente ans, l’humanité avait un problème; la science avait une obsession; et l’industrie tenait une occasion. Notre problème était l’injustice. Les rangs des affamés ne cessaient de grossir et les rangs des agriculteurs, de s’affaiblir. De son côté, la science était obsédée par la biotechnologie – la possibilité de modifier génétiquement les cultures et le bétail (et l’être humain) pour les doter de traits qui allaient régler tous nos problèmes. L’industrie agroalimentaire tenait l’occasion de prélever l’énorme valeur ajoutée tout au long de la... Read more

ETC Group News Release 9 October 2008 www.etcgroup.org

The Last Straw?  As Extreme Genetic Engineers Gather in Hong Kong, Critics Warn of Corporate Grab on Plant Life SynBio 4.0 = SynBio-4-profit

Synthetic biologists, a brave new breed of science entrepreneurs who engineer life-forms from scratch, will hold their largest-ever global gathering in Hong Kong, October 10-12, known as "Synthetic Biology 4.0." Although most people have never heard of synthetic biology, it's moving full speed ahead fueled by giant agribusiness, energy and chemical corporations with little debate about who will control the technology, how it will be regulated (or not) and despite grave concerns surrounding the safety and security risks of designer organisms. Corporate investors/partners include BP, Chevron, Shell, Virgin Fuels, DuPont, Microsoft, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland.

... Read more

Click on the 'Download PDF' icon above to download ETC Group's 12-page report, Commodifying Nature's Last Straw?  Extreme Genetic Engineering and the Post-Petroleum Sugar Economy. (PDF2 above is a higher resolution file.)

(PDF2 above contains the complete poster)

News Release Coalition Against Biopiracy Wednesday, 21 May 2008 www.captainhookawards.org www.etcgroup.org

Captain Hook Awards for Biopiracy 2008

The Coalition Against Biopiracy* exposes Hooks and celebrates Cogs

Winners announced at the UN’s Biodiversity Convention in Bonn

Today the world learned which corporations, governments, institutions and individuals earned a spot in biopiracy’s hall of shame when the Coalition Against Biopiracy (CAB) announced the winners of the 5th Captain Hook Awards at a lunch-time ceremony during the Ninth Conference of the Parties (COP9) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn, Germany.

“The Maritim Hotel, where the CBD meets this week and next, was the perfect place to... Read more

ETC Group News Release 24 January 2008 www.etcgroup.org

Venter Institute Builds Longest Sequence of Synthetic DNA (that Doesn’t Work)  “It’s not how long – but how wise” cautions ETC Group

ETC Group today renewed its call for a moratorium on the release and commercialization of synthetic organisms, asserting that societal debate on the oversight of synthetic biology is urgently overdue. The renewed call came as J. Craig Venter’s research team announced that it has constructed a bacterial-length synthetic genome in the lab using mail-order synthetic DNA sequences. They’ve named the synthetic genome, Mycoplasma genitalium JCVI-1.0, and it’s similar to its counterpart in nature, a genital bacterium with the smallest known genome of any free living organism. The announcement is not breaking news because the work had been previously reported, but the details were published today in Science.

“Venter is... Read more

In the name of moving “beyond petroleum,” Big Oil, Gene Giants, governments, start-ups and others are forming partnerships that will extend corporate control over more resources in every part of the globe – while keeping the root causes of climate change intact. With grudging recognition that first-generation agrofuels are neither economical nor ecological, investors turn to other life-based technologies, including synthetic biology, for the next alternative fuel fix. Issue: In OECD countries, massive government incentives and subsidies – estimated to be as high as US$15 billion/year – are stoking the agrofuels1 boom and spurring unprecedented alliances that extend corporate power over a larger share of the world’s resources.2 Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Brains (and more) are teaming up to reap the only certain benefit of agrofuels – increased profits. In this Communiqué, ETC Group maps the new corporate alliances propelled by (and propelling) the scramble for... Read more

ETC Group News Release 17 October 2007 www.etcgroup.org

Syns of Omission: Civil Society Organizations Respond to Report on Synthetic Biology Governance from the J. Craig Venter Institute and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation A report released today on policy options for governance of synthetic biology is a disappointing effort that fails to address wider societal concerns about the rapid deployment of a powerful and controversial new technology. Synthetic biology aims to commercialize new biological parts, devices and living organisms that are constructed from synthetic DNA - including dangerous pathogens. Synthetic biologists are attempting to harness cells as tiny factories for industrial production of chemicals, including pharmaceuticals and fuels. ETC Group describes the synthetic biology approach as "extreme genetic engineering."

The report, authored by scientists and employees from the J.... Read more

ETC Group News Release 28 June 2007 www.etcgroup.org

Synthia’s last hurdle?

Synthia – the “Original Syn” artificial microbe – may have jumped a hurdle that Dolly – the cloned sheep – never could

Synthia, the (theoretical) human-made synthetic microbe – still barely a twinkle in J. Craig Venter’s eye – may be in search of a surrogate micro-mom sometime very soon. According to a research report released today in Science magazine, Synthia (the subject of a patent application discovered by ETC Group a few weeks ago -see “Goodbye Dolly -- Hello Synthia!”) may have overcome her last hurdle. The report, authored by Craig Venter and his colleagues at Synthetic Genomics Inc., claims to have inserted a foreign bacterial genome into the cell of another... Read more

*this publication also available in German. ETC Group News Release 25 June 2007 www.etcgroup.org

The G(e)nomes of Zurich: Civil Society Calls for Urgent Controls on Synthetic Life*

Follow Syn Bio meeting on ETC Group’s blog

Scientists and industrialists in the controversial new field of synthetic biology (building life-forms from scratch) are meeting in Zurich, Switzerland this week amidst claims that the world’s first entirely human-made organism may be only weeks away from creation. Swiss and international civil society groups are calling for swift action to control this technology but the scientists themselves are advancing pre-emptive proposals to evade regulation. As scientists meet in Zurich, the UK’s Royal Society and the Swiss government announce plans to investigate synthetic biology.

Synthetic Biology 3.0... Read more

Patenting Pandora's Bug

Goodbye, Dolly...Hello, Synthia! J. Craig Venter Institute Seeks Monopoly Patents on the World's First-Ever Human-Made Life Form

ETC Group Will Challenge Patents on "Synthia" - Original Syn Organism Created in Laboratory

Ten years after Dolly the cloned sheep made her stunning debut, the J. Craig Venter Institute is applying for a patent on a new biological bombshell - the world's first-ever human-made species. The novel bacterium is made entirely with synthetic DNA in the laboratory.

The Venter Institute - named for its founder and CEO, J. Craig Venter, the scientist who led the private sector race to map the Human Genome - is applying for worldwide patents on what they refer to as "Mycoplasma laboratorium." In the tradition of 'Dolly,' ETC has nicknamed this synthetic organism (or... Read more

News ReleaseETC Group January 16, 2007www.etcgroup.org

Extreme Genetic Engineering: ETC Group Releases Report on Synthetic Biology

Findings to be presented at World Social Forum in Nairobi - 20-25 January

"Genetic engineering is passé," said Pat Mooney, Executive Director of ETC... Read more