{"id":390,"date":"2026-10-26T16:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/?p=390"},"modified":"2026-10-26T16:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-26T16:16:14","slug":"a-global-perspective-opening-the-plant-synthetic-biology-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/a-global-perspective-opening-the-plant-synthetic-biology-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"A Global Perspective: Opening the Plant Synthetic Biology Observatory."},"content":{"rendered":"

On Thursday 22nd<\/sup> October, the team from the Futuring Biological Commons project celebrated the opening of the Plant Synthetic Biology Observatory<\/strong> with three invited speakers to discuss the relationship between scientists and regulations in an era of global regulatory flux. With over 100 registered attendees and chaired by Dr Oliver Pritchard Moore<\/a>, the 90-minute session journeyed from Malaysia to Africa and concluded with the position of agricultural biotechnology in England.<\/p>\n

The Observatory is the flagship initiative of our project, and its objective is straightforward: to build and maintain a community of diverse stakeholders interested or impacted by plant synthetic biology. By bringing together different voices in different formats online we have the opportunity to build a meaningful, inclusive, and deliberative community \u2013 practices that we hope will aid good governance and good science, as agricultural biotechnology develops technically and within regulatory frameworks.<\/p>\n

Three different scientific and regulatory worlds. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The dichotomy of agricultural biotechnology, the opportunities and the concerns, is of global importance. The orientation of global science, its advancements, and global food security and supply are all going to be impacted by how individual nations and trading blocs navigate these changes. However, situated within these needs are challenges around public engagement, trust in science, and the harmonisation or coordination of regulatory frameworks and how science, globally, communicates these advancements and what they mean for everyday lived experiences of society.<\/p>\n

Dr Nurzatil Sheleeza Mat Jalaluddin<\/a> from the Universiti Malaya provided a global view of regulations and how differing approaches and interpretations of plant breeding processes can lead to regulating the same outcomes differently. For Dr Nurzatil, the challenges and costs of regulatory requirements meant that approval for gene-editing in Malaysia and its move from the laboratory to the field for commercialisation is inhibited. She called for a global harmonisation of the regulations.<\/p>\n

Dr Leena Tripathi<\/a>, from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, highlighted how changes in regulation have supported farmers, where across Sub-Saharan Africa 60% are smallholder farmers, and agriculture contributes 23% to gross-domestic product (GDP). Dr Tripathi noted the risk faced by those growing bananas which in Africa is a staple crop and not just a fruit \u2013 as it is for most western markets. Through studying wild varieties, her team have been able to move \u2018knowledge\u2019 from wild varieties to cultivated crops to mitigate the risk of Banana Xanthomonas Wilt (BXW) which risks 40% to 80% of yield losses for millions of farmers across East Africa. Dr Tripathi\u2019s argument was that gene-editing is a tool, one of many, that through enabling regulations, such as in Kenya and Rwanda, can support changes in agriculture for the benefit of farmers and society alongside conventional breeding and climate-smart agricultural practices.<\/p>\n

Dr Sadiye Hayta<\/a> from the John Innes Centre in the UK highlighted that enabling regulations was one of three elements that have pushed plant gene-editing forward \u2013 along with increased efficiency that enables developing and testing of gene editing growth and advances in gene-editing techniques. For her, the issue now is translation of interesting innovations to useful tools in the hands of farmers. From the England perspective this is a question of alignment with the rest of the UK (the current enabling regulations only allow commercialisation in England, not the whole of the UK), and also with Europe. Commercialisation is an issue and something that requires a better understanding of what the public wants and needs, alongside trust in the science.<\/p>\n

Relationality is central. <\/strong><\/p>\n

What was clear from each speaker is that the opportunities and concerns of agricultural biotechnology and the potential of advancements such as plant synthetic biology relies on understanding and exploring the relationality of the science and the regulations. Each speaker and the audience explored concerns around trust, harmonisation across jurisdictions, and enabling regulatory frameworks. Evidence from Eastern Africa and England provided by our speakers highlights how changes in regulations has enabled the science to move forward. However, as was highlighted, trust broadly across society is essential to good governance and good science.<\/p>\n

Relationality sits centrally between the science, regulations, and the public, regardless of the geographical place. Attendees highlighted the challenging issue surrounding labelling \u2013 something that has put the England regulations under judicial review \u2013 how to build trust, and who is responsible for it. Such matters will often sit within public engagement which all agreed is needed but the question posed was how do we ensure it is more than just a tick-boxing exercise. Public engagement requires more listening and less educating.<\/p>\n

In an uncertain and fractured international political climate, how advances of science are communicated and how non-scientists or non-policymakers are understood and listened to is essential.<\/p>\n

The next observatory. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our next meeting will take these ideas of relationality further and will move them to the agricultural world and will focus on building that relationality. At the end of December, we will host four experts, a plant biotechnologist, a social scientist, and two farmers to explore how agriculture and \u2018caring\u2019 for nature means to them and their work.<\/p>\n

Questions will be submitted by attendees to our panel of experts and we hope you will join us for what promises to be a really illuminating observatory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Thursday 22nd October, the team from the Futuring Biological Commons project celebrated the opening of the Plant Synthetic Biology Observatory with three invited speakers to discuss the relationship between scientists and regulations in an era of global regulatory flux. With over 100 registered attendees and chaired by Dr Oliver Pritchard Moore, the 90-minute session […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2370,"featured_media":414,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.kent.ac.uk\/futuringcommons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}