Q&A: Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (C-PET)

An Interview with C-PET President and CEO Nigel M. de S. Cameron by Kyle Funk

The Center for Policy on Emerging Technologies (c-pet.org) is a Washington, DC-based think tank focused on raising the profile of emerging technology policy issues and convening stakeholder discussion in areas such as GM crops, synthetic biology and vaccines. Its board includes corporate, academic, science, and NGO leaders.

How does C-PET influence science policy in America?
We host events and are developing reports. For example, we invited both the presidential candidates to be represented at a high-level invitational day conference during the campaign, with expert panels on the federal role, space policy, and bio/nano. We are also developing C-PET Global as our international partner, which has convened a transatlantic dialogue meeting in Europe and is working on an African initiative. The United States remains well in the lead in most of these technologies, but the issues are global.

How does C-PET seek to inform the debate on the issue of synthetic biology? GM crops?
C-PET’s approach is to bring parties round the table, recognizing that the issues raised by emerging technologies (of which synthetic biology is one of the more exciting and, potentially, troublesome) are of much greater significance than mainstream policy leaders tend to realize. We don’t naively believe that consensus is always possible. We do believe that identifying areas of agreement and disagreement early on in technology development, and addressing potential policy implications, is both good for technology and also for the values of civil society.

How can public policy affect the way scientific research is conducted and applied, specifically do you favor a top down approach?
I’m sure our fellows and board members take various views, but most of us would favor more federal investment in emerging technologies, and many would favor fresh approaches to research and development that encourage innovation and the work of young researchers. Governments should not dictate research - though of course they set the legal context for issues like human subject research. But they need to take more interest in the long-term implications of research. That will have the effect both of strengthening democratic participation in the shaping of the future, and underwriting the private investment dollars that will determine where research and development leads.

What are the biggest challenges when attempting to foster discussion on controversial topics such as synthetic biology?
Well, ignorance. It doesn’t worry me that political leaders are not scientists (some are, not many); it does worry me that they simply don’t see S and T issues as high on the agenda. How many speeches did the candidates make in the presidential campaign on these issues? I wonder what difference it would make if leaders in both parties took the same kind of visionary interest in S and T that President Kennedy showed in the space program. So, whether synthetic biology is wonderful or worrying (and its lead practitioners tend to agree it is both), we need a national conversation that looks seriously ahead.

What will be the goals and functions of the Commission on Biotechnology, currently in development by C-PET?
We are development three commissions to help frame our work and also to contribute to the setting of the agenda for the national debate - on artificial intelligence/robotics, on the future of the internet, and on biotechnology. They will draw together industry and policy leaders, NGOs from left and right, technology visionaries, and also science communicators - with an initial task of listing the strategic issues they see on the horizon 10 years ahead. Unless we can get deeper into that conversation, it is hard to see how we can make the best decisions for fiscal 2011.

Who supports C-PET? Is the center completely independent of the political parties?
C-PET is entirely independent, and our board and other groups include leaders known for their commitments right across the political spectrum. We have had support from individuals, foundations, universities, and the corporate world.

For more information, please visit: http://www.ritabiotech.com and http://www.c-pet.org

Nigel Cameron was most recently at the Illinois Institute of Technology, where he led a project on the societal implications of biotechnology and founded the Center on Nanotechnology and Society. His most recent book, edited with M. Ellen Mitchell, is Nanoscale: Issues and Perspectives (Wiley).

This article is also being published in the journal Human Vaccines, Volume 6, Issue 5. A free open-access .pdf of the feature is available at: http://www.landesbioscience.com/journals/vaccines/article/12218/