I’m interested in how biological signals can be used more frequently in our day to day objects and materials in order to create more low energy sensors and indicators. By biological signals, I mean the use of living systems or biomaterials that naturally react to external stimuli—such as moisture, temperature, light, pH, pollutants etc. to convey some information. Some examples are:

• Engineered Plants that move, change color, or alter their growth patterns in response to some stimuli.
• Living materials embedded with bacteria or fungi or bio-based inks that act as environmental indicators—such as textiles, surfaces packaging, or building materials that change color, glow, self-heal, etc. in certain conditions for interesting applications in the built environment or wearables.
• Materials that Grow to create products that are “grown” rather than “built”.

Ethical Framework

Reflection:

• I would prioritize an all encompassing regulatory body being developed for these specific applications, as I believe that the FDA is not sufficient or broad-enough in scope to cover all ethical aspects of these technologies. This regulatory body would need to cover environmental & ecological, user focused, privacy & data, and social aspects of this technology.
• I also noticed that as I began scoring, my frameworks were severely lacking in the monitoring area. Especially with living technologies that evolve, morph and develop over time, its crucial to have regulations in place that monitor the development and changes in the products and materials.

Weekly Assignment

Reflecting on ethical concerns and governance actions during this time in the United States is especially interesting (and frustrating) given that our current government does not prioritize environmental protection as well as public health. Certain topics we covered in the lecture like biological weapons or pandemic pathogens seem to be especially relevant to this. While organizations like WHO or the UN have many guidelines for governance around these topics, and perhaps a crucial question is how to we ensure that major decisions like withdrawing from these bodies or agreements is not in the power of just a few individuals. As pathogens like bird flu are emerging, it raises the question of how the country will handle this without the support of a major governance body like the WHO.

Final Project Assignment

Strategy to ensure my project contributes to growing an ethical biological future:

• Consider all possible applications and environments it will live in, and how that translates to potential risks and challenges.
• Transparency about areas that seem like a potential hazard or risk, and whether there are ways to address it in future work.
• Overall reflections on the pros and cons of developing bio-designed products in the built environment.