Team:UNebraska-Lincoln/Integrated Practices 7

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Conclusion

Future work:


Members of our team aim to further advocate for increasing the role of safety in the iGEM competition and the integration of safety cases. Dr. Myra Cohen, one of our iGEM advisors, will be writing a proposal to have a software tool written to convert textual based safety cases directly into a diagram format. The idea of SafetyBricks and the feasibility of a SafetyBrick repository will be further developed. We also hope to collaborate with our faculty advisors on their next publication regarding safety cases applied to the biological domain.


Conclusion


As discussed, biosafety is a restraining factor for the growth of synthetic biology. Two other restraining factors for SB are biosecurity and bioethics. The idea of safety cases is not perfect as it does not directly take into account these two factors. Having confidence in the safety of engineered organisms could help to relieve pressure from both the biosecurity and the bioethics of SB.

Safety cases seem like a natural way to help mind the gap between the iGEM competition and real-world implementation of the system.  We believe the development of safety cases could establish a pathway that could very well lead to the certification and regulation of SEBO’s. Through the large-scale integration of safety cases into the field of SB, biosafety concerns could become less restraining on the field’s growth.




Note: Information regarding software safety cases presented on this Wiki is based on information from Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute

Works Cited


M. B. Cohen, J. Firestone, M. Pierobon, The Assurance Timeline: Building Assurance Cases for Synthetic Biology, International Workshop on Assurance Cases for Software-intensive Systems (ASSURE), to appear, September, pp. 75-86, 2016.

Bruckner, Monica. "The Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone." Microbial Life Education Resources. Montana State University, n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

Singh, Ranjan. "Synthetic Biology : Global Opportunity Analysis and Forecast - 2013 - 2020." Allied Market Research. N.p., May 2014. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.

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