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#COP13 - Synthetic Biology could drastically change Nature as we know it

As part of the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology, Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) follows up the negotiations on this set of new genetic engineering technologies that attempt to design and redesign biological systems or even create new ones from algae or yeast.

“They could drastically change nature as we know it”, says Dana Perls, from Friends of the Earth US and member of FOEI’s delegation at the COP 13 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), in Cancun, Mexico (see the videos below). Along with the Civil Society Working Group on Synthetic Biology, she’s been calling on the countries that are parties to the CBD to regulate the development of these new technologies that haven’t been yet submitted to risk assessment.

In particular, they asked for a moratorium on gene drives, that allows to drop genes into a specimen in order to change its species or even extinguish it.