Welcome to the Center for Ethical Genetic Engineering! We're always excited when new members start and this is an especially exciting time to be joining us. I’ll get to that in a minute.

Overview
First, let me give you a brief overview of what we do here at the CEGE. Our organization is a nonprofit think tank made up of scientists, ethicists, civil society leaders, and others who work to encourage the responsible and ethical use of genetic engineering technologies. We also work to help educate the public and other entities to encourage decisions on the use of these technologies that are based on factual information.

For example, we recently finished a project with a university with a new biotechnology lab. Most universities have a review board that oversees research being conducted to ensure that the work is safe, ethical, and being conducted properly. The university’s review board was unfamiliar with the issues related to biotechnology and asked us to bring their members up to speed so they could properly oversee research being conducted in the new biotech lab. We ended up working with the community around the university as well to answer their questions and concerns and to clear up some of the misconceptions people had about what biotechnology involved. Although the researchers in the lab were holding themselves to a high standard and all the initial work they had been preparing for was eventually approved, the review board felt more confident in overseeing the lab’s research and much of the community felt more comfortable with the lab being a part of their community.

New Opportunity
I have just received a request from Congress to provide a team from CEGE to testify at congressional hearings that are being held regarding some hot topics in the area of biotechnology. As part of the testimony, we'll need to deliver presentations, participate in debates, and submit a final report. I’ve forwarded you the email detailing what we have been asked to do and have attached project guidelines that provide additional details on the presentations, debates and final reports. You'll probably want to keep these guidelines on hand and refer back to them as needed as you're going through your work. I also let them know that you’ll be working on the projects and that they can contact you directly in the future.

This may all seem like a lot given that it’s your first day at CEGE, but I'm sure that the destination will well be worth the journey!


Sincerely,

Susan Woodrow, PhD

Dear Dr. Woodrow,

The Congressional Subcommittee on Biotechnology will be holding hearings on the risks and benefits of genetic engineering. Biotechnology has existed for over 30 years, but there have been recent advances in techniques and the expansion of the number of ways biotechnology can be applied. In light of these recent developments, we need to revisit the issues surrounding genetic engineering. Furthermore, we are hearing many questions and concerns about what we are doing to ensure biotechnologies are used responsibly. While some people are excited about the possibilities the new technologies offer, others are uneasy. Our staff doesn’t always know how to answer the questions people ask. We know that some countries in the world are even less comfortable, so the potential impact on international trade is a concern as well. Ultimately, we want to determine if there is enough oversight and regulation of biotechnology industries, whether issues around biotechnology have gone under the radar, and whether any changes to policy are needed. In order to make these determinations, we need to first look at these issues in more depth to determine whether the benefits outweigh the risks.

What we need from you

We would like to have a team from your organization testify at the hearings. Rather than listening to theoretical explanations of these issues, we have decided to have groups present on specific applications of biotechnology in order to give our members something concrete to think about. We would, however, still like you to present in a way that will help the members of the committee think through issues surrounding genetic engineering in general, so that we can address issues that may arise in the future without needing to hold further hearings.

We are going to hold forums on three topics:

• Genetic modification of animals, specifically using biotechnology to make pets hypoallergenic.
  
  
• Genetic modification of plants, specifically using biotechnology to increase the nutritional value of potatoes as well as to make the potatoes resistant to pests.
  
  
• Genetic modification of humans, specifically using biotechnology to enhance muscle tissue.

We will hold our forums separately in a series. In each topic forum, we would like you to do the following:

• Present on the topic and then answer questions from the committee. If there are questions that you cannot respond to, you'll need to follow up on any of those unanswered questions in a written response to the committee.



• Participate in a debate on each topic in order to get a more thorough understanding of the central issues involved.

At the end of the series of forums, we'd like the following:

• a final presentation from the team that summarizes your thoughts and comments on the use of biotechnology generally.



• individual, final written reports on each forum topic, as supporting material. Since any decisions that we make are likely not to satisfy everyone, we would like to compare the perspectives of the individual members of your team with the group decisions your team made as demonstrated by the presentations.
  

Here are a few points to keep in mind for the presentations:

• Some members of the subcommittee as well as other people who will be present or involved in the discussion may not be familiar with genetics or genetic technology. Present any basic information that is needed to understand the more complex issues (how things are done and why they work).
  
  
• Present information on the scientific as well as the ethical perspectives involved.



• Keep the ethical conversation secular. We are bound by the separation between church and state to focus on non-religious arguments here. This is one of the challenges we face in discussing the issues with our constituents, and your help in keeping religion out of the discussion would be much appreciated.
  

Thank you for your cooperation on this matter. We look forward to hearing from you.


Sincerely,

Congressman James Phillips,
D-Nebraska