News & blogs

Filter the news by type

News Release: Last Chance for Kickstarter to stop release of risky seeds

Submitted by david on

Stop the spread of synthetic biology

There is less than a day to go before the popular crowdfunding site Kickstarter.com hands hundreds of thousands of dollars to a controversial project for the widespread and unregulated distribution of over half a million extreme-bioengineered seeds. Kickstarter, which stands to make over $22,000 from the project (1), has steadfastly refused to comment on its listing of a project to make and distribute ‘glowing genetically modified plants’ using Synthetic Biology.

Response from 'Glowing Plants' project

Submitted by Anonymous on

Email sent by Antony Evans

 

From: Antony Evans 

Date: May 7, 2013 1:34:33 PM EDT

 

Subject: Re: Request to Cancel the Kickstarter Synthetic Biology ‘Glowing Plants’ project.

Dear Jim Thomas and Eric Hoffman,

Thank you for your interest in our project and taking the time to write to us with your concerns. Please allow me to clarify and expand upon a few key points. 

Kickstopper letter to 'Glowing Plants' project

Submitted by Jim Thomas on

ETC Group and Friends of The Earth request a halt to Synthetic Biology project.

 

2 May 2013 Dear Antony Evans,

Request to Cancel the Kickstarter Synthetic Biology ʻGlowing Plantsʼ project.

We are writing to express our concern, in the strongest possible terms, about the project you have listed on Kickstarter, which, as currently advertised, will likely result in widespread, random and uncontrolled release of bioengineered seeds and plants produced with synthetic biology techniques. We respectfully request that this project, which poses real world risks to the environment, be abandoned as currently described.

Kickstopper Letter to Kickstarter

Submitted by Jim Thomas on

ETC and Friends of the Earth request Kickstarter Inc to Cancel the 'Glowing Plants' Project

 

Kickstarter Inc

155 Rivington St.

Second Floor

New York, NY 10002

United States 

30th April 2013

 

Dear Perry Chen, Charles Adler and Yancey Strickler:

Request for Kickstarter to cancel the Synthetic Biology ‘Glowing Plant: Natural Lighting with No Electricity’ project

Using Conservation for Synthetic Biology.

Submitted by Jim Thomas on

Using Conservation for Synthetic Biology.
English

Frankly it was all a set up. In the delightfully romantic setting of an old Cambridge college in springtime, complete with free drinks and delicious food, the organizers of last weeks 'Future of Nature' Conference smiled on conspiratorially as their contrivances to introduce two awkward strangers played out over 3 days.

The strangers in this case were not so much boy-meets-girl as naturalist-meets-geek and what they purportedly had in common was biology. The Future of Nature had been billed as an encounter between the synthetic biology community (biotech scientists practicing an extreme form of genetic engineering that builds artificial organisms) and the conservation biology community who are still trying to hold back the frontier of wildlife destruction for non-engineered nature.

Pages

Subscribe to News & blogs