Report: Biotechnology, the American Chestnut, and Public Engagement
In April 2018, a team of NC State faculty and students convened a stakeholder workshop to explore opportunities for public engagement surrounding the development, regulatory review, and potential deployment of a genetically engineered American chestnut tree. As perhaps the first GMO designed to spread and persist in the wild, the tree has the potential to restore a functionally extinct species, but also raises important ethical, political, ecological, and cultural questions. This report describes the workshop and its purpose, details the substance of the discussions, and offers the research team’s perspective on lessons learned and ways forward....Continue reading "Report: Biotechnology, the American Chestnut, and Public Engagement"
Podcast: Regulate This!: How Genetic Engineering is Regulated, with Jennifer Kuzma
Podcast - Regulate This!: How Genetic Engineering is Regulated Dr. Jennifer Kuzma from NC State walks us through the complicated world of regulations that control how genetically engineering plants and animals make into our world and onto our plates. Really interesting conversation with broad implications for how society regulates complex technologies. Length: 1 hour, 28 minutes...
Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education
Problems related to food, energy and water are becoming increasingly complex. NC State is taking a new approach to prepare the scientists who will solve them....Continue reading "Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education"
‘Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education’
GES Center to launch NSF-funded AgBioFEWS graduate program, blending natural and social sciences to train next-gen problem-solvers in agricultural biotechnology....Continue reading "‘Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education’"
‘Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education’
NC State’s AgBioFEWS program will blend natural and social sciences to train next-generation problem-solvers in agricultural biotechnology....Continue reading "‘Changing the Landscape of Graduate Education’"
Gould quoted in C&EN: Building bioethics into the future of life sciences innovation
Scientists who refuse to engage with ethicists and the public will find themselves at a disadvantage. “Just because you are a scientist and have invented something doesn’t mean you have authority over it,” says Fred Gould, an entomologist and co-director of the Genetic Engineering & Society Center at North Carolina State University. He points to the National Academies report’s advocacy of participatory decision-making. Resistance from the science community based on ethicists and the public not fully understanding the science wears thin, he says. “You are a pretty poor scientist if you can’t explain what these things are about to an ethicist,” he says....
NBC News – Gould: Exposure levels determine toxicity of glyphosate
“With all things, it is the level of exposure that matters,” said Fred Gould, head of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University. “The poison is in the concentration.”...Continue reading "NBC News – Gould: Exposure levels determine toxicity of glyphosate"
Washington Post: Kuzma calls for mandatory regulatory process for gene-edited foods
“We need a mandatory regulatory process: not just for scientific reasons, but for consumer and public confidence,” Kuzma said. “I think the vast majority of gene-edited foods are going to be as safe as their conventionally bred counterparts. But I don’t buy into the argument that’s true all the time for every crop.”...
Call for art for 2019 “genetic futures” exhibit
open call for art | 2019 Genetic Futures exhibit | Now accepting proposals from artists, scientists, designers, and makers. The NCSU Libraries, NC State’s Genetic Engineering and Society Center (GES), and the Gregg Museum of Art & Design have issued a public call for art for the upcoming exhibition Art’s Work in the Age of Biotechnology: Shaping our Genetic Futures....Continue reading "Call for art for 2019 “genetic futures” exhibit"
EU ruling on gene-edited plants and GMOs is more status quo than disruptive
Prior to the recent European Union ruling regarding gene-edited plants, opponents stoked fears that these new gene editing techniques were a loop-hole for big agricultural companies to release their untested, dangerous GMOs onto an unsuspecting...Continue reading "EU ruling on gene-edited plants and GMOs is more status quo than disruptive"
Kuzma Urges a Broader Conversation on Underlying Ethics of Gene Editing Technology
Source: Financial Express This Man Rewrites the Genetic Code of Animals By: Aki Ito | July 19, 2018 In this article about Dan Carlson, a scientist bioengineering hornless cattle, Jennifer Kuzma, co-director of the Genetic...
Publication: How social science should complement scientific discovery: lessons from nanoscience
Dr. David Berube, Professor of Science and Technology Communication, and GES Center affiliate, has published the following article in the Journal of Nanoparticle Research. How social science should complement scientific discovery: lessons from nanoscience CITE AS: Berube,...
Genome Editing in Agriculture – CAST Issue Paper
PRESS RELEASE: July 9, 2018. Twentieth-century advances in plant and animal breeding did much to help meet the increasing food, fiber, feed, and fuel needs of an expanding world. But continued population growth, resource shortages, climate change, and pest prevalence make sustainability a daunting yet essential task. Genome editing is a powerful new method that enables unprecedented control over genetic material and offers the opportunity to make rapid advances that influence agricultural practices....Continue reading "Genome Editing in Agriculture – CAST Issue Paper"
Pesticide Resistance Arms Race
In this episode we talk with Fred Gould, William Neal Reynolds Professor of Agriculture and Life Sciences, about the rising rates of herbicide and pesticide resistance, the current state of the resistance arms race and what we need to do in the future to protect our crops and human health from resistant pests. Length: 15 minutes...
10 of the Most Diabolical Crop Pests in North Carolina
Ten of the most vexing pests that prey on agriculture in North Carolina....Continue reading "10 of the Most Diabolical Crop Pests in North Carolina"