life science essay
Exploring the Intersection of Life Science and Society: Impacts, Challenges, and Ethical Considerations
Public opinion on the societal applications and the control of scientific research in the life sciences has been and still is ambivalent. What comes with religious, philosophical, moral, or ethical guidelines is also an aspect of control beyond experimental or evidence-based decision-making. It is notable that these spiritual and ethical regulations and guideposts are motivated through concerns for potential negative impacts of life science-based developments and applications on individuals, communities, and ecosystems. The life sciences community is called on to consider challenges and ethical guidelines which may arise from its increasingly important societal role. Crucial steps on the way to make the public accept and support these developments are open debates on potential advantages of solving societal challenges linked to new life science-based knowledge, the responsible use of such achievements, and on research that may reveal the significant problems of these new scientific domains.
Modern biology intersects society in many ways that give rise to a large variety of important ethical issues. After all, advances in the life sciences, including biotechnology and synthetic biology, make it increasingly possible to modify the biological basis of life and to design and construct living organisms.
At the same time, the process due to the existing technologies and methods of genetic alteration should guarantee that no fear for the “man-made” food products will discourage its consumption. Considering a decrease in food prices in comparison to low food production, animal biotechnology also offers emotive arguments, ethical interpretations, and perceptions arising from the religious/moral use of animals within the food chain. Such determinations are therefore highly reliant on different cultural, religious, and ethical values and beliefs regarding environmental ethical principles.
Agriculture faces enormous challenges as it is required to produce a higher quality, larger quantity, and wider variety of food in a more environmentally friendly manner, meeting human needs, conserving natural resources, and by following better principles of human health or nutritional policies. Traditional technologies using knowledge and technologies have increased productivity in agriculture and recently in organic farming. Manipulation of the genetic potential of plants and animals for the purposes of improving their performance is not new. Larger and better-known animals for meat and food production have been developed, as well as a large number of plant lines have been improved by conventional breeding as well as mutagenesis. Yet even with existing breeding technology and improved management and husbandry of the animals and plants, genetic improvements will still be needed to achieve a great increase in quality and a higher quantity of food.
Once these become a reality, life insurance and disability insurance will also change. Significant treatment and care outnumber preventative care in today’s definitions of healthcare. These healthcare business models that have adapted to the current focus of treatment and care have to figure out how to adapt or re-tool their existing treatments or service models. The socioeconomic gap will also become more apparent, considering an increased life expectancy, and may cause differences in the degree of medical benefits across these different socioeconomic groups. Researchers are therefore increasingly encouraged to endeavor in exploring how health and preventive care treatment structures and costs will change. The next application of bioscience will involve the industrial production of mutations geared to benefit humans. These commercial applications, derived from the altered, synthetic or patented life, may be further used towards developing altered agriculture, and as experimental sources for human benefit. In addition to diverse technical, health, and social expectations, some also expect a possible new overview and understanding of cultural heritage and evolution theory.
One of the most significant impacts of the rapid growth in the field of life science has been to extend life expectancy and improve the quality of human life by creating new medicine, medical treatment, and health information. For instance, gene analysis is expected to allow the early prediction of illnesses even before their onset and thus new pharmaceutical treatments targeting the underlying mechanism of genetic illnesses. This is a safer and more intelligent medicine. The industry for gene analysis is expected to reach $100 billion over the next several years. These expected changes in paradigms, from medicine after the onset to predictive medicine and therapeutic medicine including individually optimized and personalized medicine, will also create important changes in medical insurance that supports such treatments, the medical system, ethics, and society overall. At the same time, the burden on both patients and medical staff will continue to increase.
Three challenges that are present in almost all examples of a mature field include those of scope, legitimacy, and community consensus. First, the scope of a field concerns the bounds of what is studied. In the case of a new application or an as yet genuine scientific discovery, the question of scope may involve whether some new boundary of potential significance has been reached, such as a possible species barrier. Second, legitimacy asks the question of whether researchers working inside some scopes should actually be doing so. Third, community consensus asks the question of whether there is some existing community that can address the previous questions in a way that will be respected by other researchers in the field.
Given the astronomical rate at which discoveries and the resulting innovative applications are being made in life science, the research enterprise necessarily faces numerous challenges and obstacles that are as vast and variable as the scientific research itself. Many obstacles have been with us historically and are still present today, often in new guises, reinforced by modern technological breakthroughs that generate vast new knowledge sectors ripe for commercial and institutional motivation. Many of the most valuable insights in the life sciences involve the processes on which all life depends, as well as pathways by which life-sustaining patterns and feedback loops have evolved. As life scientists have discovered and sought to capitalize on historically novel biological pathways, applications have arisen that cross universally recognized boundaries forming the front lines of society’s engagement with life science.
Human health has always been an inseparable and invaluable part of life science. Population growth and increasing amounts of chronic diseases often strain the existing healthcare system and impair the sustainability of society. To develop transformative gene-editing technologies to tackle genetic diseases is one way to fulfill the vision of humans thriving for many future generations. However, these technologies and related research must follow proper ethical guidelines. Therefore, bioethics and societally responsible innovation are of paramount importance.
Life science has harnessed the power of biology and pushed it to unprecedented heights. Consequently, we are now capable of manipulating or observing life processes in ways previously unimaginable. Society is then presented with the critical question of how to ethically and responsibly navigate the potential impacts of life science research in positively shaping the direction of its applications. In this section, we will discuss the ethical issues related to life science innovations and the expanding realm of bioethics. We will further explore the dimensions of responsible innovation.
The issues are thorny and the solutions are neither obvious nor easy. In addition, the issues are almost as much social and ethical as technical. They are issues that an informed society must decide how to handle. We are all stakeholders, along with governments, industries, and advocacy groups, both national and international. Scientific insights can be valuable, but the scientists’ privilege of setting the agenda for these issues comes with responsibility—to participate in and contribute to the dialogue, taking an active part in frank and open exchanges with colleagues among themselves and with members of the broader public.
The most breathtaking applications are those that relate to creating, controlling, or altering living organisms. We are on the verge of being able to design living organisms and ecosystems that could potentially serve the interests of humanity and the nonhuman environment in a variety of ways. Science is not moving ahead blindly: a crucial lesson of the past 40 years, and particularly the last 20, is that the finest scientists in each field exploring fundamental questions in biology have much to contribute to the interplay of science, public policy, and ethics that guides how biology is applied.
The last 50 years have seen incredible accomplishments and changes in the life sciences. We have transformed our understanding of basic biology and used this knowledge to improve human health, raise the standard of living, and protect the environment. Progress has brought new challenges, however, as the life sciences are applied in ways that potentially affect humanity on a global scale.
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