A New Bay Area Lab Will Focus on Synthetic Biology
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Cross-posted from Climate Connections.January 19, 2012 – Last September, Climate Connections ran a letter of concern from the Council for Responsible Genetics and the Alliance for Humane Biotechnology about a massive new research facility being planned for the San Francisco Bay Area, as a second campus of Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL). The announcement of the lab site was expected by late last year, but has been postponed until early 2012.
Meanwhile, concerns continue to run high among those who are aware of the lab’s implications; a few weeks into 2012, we are beginning to see word about the lab in the local news. Most reports reliably mention Lawrence Berkeley’s having spawned 13 Nobel Laureates, and being former home to Steven Chu, Obama’s Energy Secretary. Reports also commonly give an uncritical nod to LBNL’s role as a pioneer in private-sector funding for University research, and note, without much particular interest, that such funding has launched a generation of scientist-impresarios on incredibly lucrative business careers.
What isn’t mentioned so clearly, or is left out altogether (as in this article from the East Bay Express) is that the new lab will focus on synthetic biology – a new, high-powered field of research that combines the tools of biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, computer science, and nanotechnology, with the corporate entrepreneurial spirit of big pharma and a sort of hypermodern replay of the old advertising adage, “better living through chemistry”.