A Biodesign Code of Ethics
What is one value, principle, or ethic that you think biodesign should embody? Tell us what it is and why you think it’s important.
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Unity
To truly achieve a just, diverse, and equitable future, one that is necessary to protect our environment, biodesign cannot be disentangled from social justice. As the planet gets hotter and more crowded, biodesign can demonstrate how we are all interconnected. Biodesign has the potential to unify because the language of biology is universal. Biodesign offers a pathway to dismantle systems of exclusion and uplift us all.
—Joanne DeLuca
Interbeing
“All that you touch You Change. All that you Change, Changes you,” Octavia Butler wrote in Parable of the Sower. Biodesign should embody interbeing. We must ask ourselves: are our designs serving humans as individuals or holobionts? What lines should be drawn between the natural and unnatural? How will our designs spark greater diversity? Biodesign can bring about global systemic change to transition towards a sustainable, just, and peaceful future.
—Leon Elcock
Humility
Biodesign should embody humility. As we build, explore, and experiment with biology, biodesigners must consider who our work is for and how our knowledge about biology is gained. Biotechnologists in the Global North must consider cultural context when transferring their products to the Global South. Beyond simply providing a yes or no on a design element, technology development should involve a sustained dialogue and collaboration between all interested parties. Biodesign cannot solely be focused on its ends, it must also consider the means by which those ends are achieved.
—Wakanene Sebastian Kamau
Safety
As a biodesign community, we need to create a safe space for asking, “Why, how, who, where, and when?”; a safe space to listen, be heard, and feel like we belong; a safe space for saying, “We don’t know”; a safe space for learning new approaches and values through honest collaboration; and a safe space to think and speak in ways we haven’t before, especially when these ways feel at odds with academia or start-up culture. We need to value this fluid, cultural safety over novelty. We need to co-create these safe spaces with diverse voices and a sincere willingness to co-evolve.
—Jestin George
Equality
Species egalitarianism is the view that all living species—be it a much-loved furry mammal or an amoeba—have equal moral standing. Adopting such an ethos in biodesign seems uncontroversial yet this fundamental truth needs to be nuanced. If we keep seeing nature as an outsider, as something we need to protect, as something we gaze at, or, contrarily, something that we exploit, we do not stand a chance at creating better futures. What we should recognize is that we are nature, and that nature is us. And when we start seeing nature more holistically, as a circular system that is ordered yet messy, and that is about life but also death and renewal, we start to realize that biodesign is not just about sustainable ways of living. It is also about acknowledging that we are all dependent on each other in a closed-loop system that is planet Earth.
—Ollie Cotsaftis
Partnership
—Phillip Gough
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Joanne DeLuca is a futures strategist, cultural analyst, designer, co-founder of Sputnik Futures, and co-author of the Alice in Futureland book series and podcast programs. She co-founded Sputnik in 1994, researching and interconnecting emergent and leading ideas in the arts, sciences and technology to deliver transformative business growth that anticipates tomorrow’s agenda. Sputnik has built a global digital film library of over 400 leading thinkers who push the boundaries of possibility.
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Leon Elcock is a budding biodesigner. He attended the University of Delaware for his B.S and Johns Hopkins University for his M.S. Previously, he built out the lyophilization manufacturing department at Biomeme. He is currently a Public Policy Fellow collaborating with Ginkgo Bioworks to develop a toolkit for Cyan-collar jobs. He is interested in synthetic biology, social justice, and transition design.
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Wakanene Sebastian Kamau is a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab studying ecological engineering. His work is focused on developing practices for community guided research with an emphasis on conservation.
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Jestin George is a genetic engineer, design futuring researcher and visual artist. Her PhD explored genetic engineering strategies for algal biotechnology and synthetic biology. She continues to teach and lecture Design Futuring and Biodesign at universities across Australia, USA and Saudi Arabia. She specialises in the space between synthetic biology and speculative design practices.
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Dr. Olivier Cotsaftis is a post-disciplinary designer navigating the spaces between presents, futures, fictions, and realities. At RMIT University School of Design, his research addresses climate resilience and social innovation in more-than-human, bio-urban heterotopias. Ollie is also the founder and creative director of future ensemble studio and the co-founder of Speculative Futures Melbourne—the Melbourne Chapter of The Design Futures Initiative.
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Dr. Phil Gough is a Lecturer in Biological Design with the Affective Interactions lab at The University of Sydney School of Architecture Design and Planning. His research sits at the intersection of biodesign, the smart home of the future and data visualisation.
Cite This Essay
“A Biodesign Code of Ethics” Biodesigned: Issue 9, 11 November, 2021. Accessed [month, day, year].
