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Synthetic biology and governance research in China: a 40-year evolution

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Abstract

The governance of emerging technologies has become a topic of global concern, not only for national competitiveness, but also for national security. Among other technologies, synthetic biology (SynBio) has been prioritized in the policy agenda of many countries; China is no exception. Unfortunately, despite the interconnectedness of governance practices and research development, few studies have investigated the current situation and development trajectory of this emerging dual use technology. To fill in this gap, this study focuses on China and investigates the pattern and evolution of its SynBio and related biosafety and biosecurity research published in both domestic and international databases. We find that despite its late entrance to the field, national government funding plays a critical role in China’s SynBio research. However, the funding ratio of SynBio as well as SynBio safety research is lower than China’s average when considering all fields. The structural topic model analysis reveals that the biological sciences dominate China’s SynBio research and slowly diffuse to other disciplines such as materials science, physics, and medicine, while perspectives from Chinese social scientists are barely recorded on the international academic stage. We also find little overlap of topics between China’s domestic and international output on SynBio and its safety research. Speculations and policy implications are discussed in the end.

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Notes

  1. The workable definition of dual-use was discussed in Forge (2010). It is widely accepted as research that is intended for benefit but which might be misapplied to do harm (Kuzma et al., 2017).

  2. Safety and security in this context often refer to the unique concerns incurred by synthetic biology. For example, Ahteensuu (2017) noted that SynBio safety mainly concerns “research personnel working with synthetic organisms and potential damage to the environment and population surrounding the research area,” while SynBio security is often related to the potential misuses of this technology, such as bioterrorism, biowarfare, or bioattacks (Gomez-Tatay and Hernandez-Andreu, 2019). In this paper, for the sake of brevity, we use the term SynBio safety to refer to both safety and security in the field.

  3. CNKI publications were downloaded in May 2020 and updated in October 2022. The WoS publications were downloaded in June 2022. The publication coverage of our sample in both databases is from 1981 to 2020.

  4. For example, after consulting synthetic biologists and scholars who have conducted research on safety and security issues of synthetic biology, we added “engineering biology*” into the search terms. For detailed search queries of synthetic biology and SynBio safety research, please refer to the Appendices section.

  5. For the sake of brevity, we do not report the diagnostic process of selecting the number of topics for China’s domestic publications in the second phase of 2011–2020 and for the research published in international journals. This process is available upon the request; please contact the first author or corresponding author.

  6. The selection process of topic numbers for Chinese SynBio safety publications in domestic and international databases are available upon request to the first author or corresponding author.

  7. We speculate there are two reasons for why topics published within China differ from those published in international journals. One explanation could be that Chinese SynBio scientists who published in domestic and international journals are different sets of scholars. To test this hypothesis, we retrieved the names and spellings of all first authors in our dataset. We found the overlapping authors between Chinese domestic publications and international publications were only 4.51% for SynBio and 0.84% for SynBio safety over the examined 40 years. The second explanation relates to journal self-selection. Using SynBio safety research as an example, it is reasonable to believe that journals’ different preferences contribute to the disparate topics shown in Figs. 5 and 7. To examine this argument, we first selected the top five CNKI- and WoS-indexed journals by the number of Synbio safety publications from our analyzing dataset. We next retrieved and identified, collectively, their top keywords (authors) in the entire dataset over the examined period between 1980 and 2020. As presented in Appendix 3, the two groups of journals demonstrate distinct pattern of themes.

  8. These three committees are the Scientific Committee on Health and Environmental Risks (SCHER), the Scientific Committee on Emerging and Newly Identified Health Risks (SCENIHR), and the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Synthetic Biology Biosafety Research project under the National Key Research and Development Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (Grant No. 2020YFA0908600). We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the funding agencies.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Li Tang & Yin Li

  2. School of Public and International Affairs and Genetic Engineering and Society Center, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Jennifer Kuzma

  3. College of Management and Economics, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Xi Zhang

  4. Center for Biosafety Research and Strategy, Tianjin University, Tianjin, 300072, China

    Xinyu Song

  5. Teaching Quality Assurance Office, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, China

    Hongxu Liu

  6. School of Public Economics and Management, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Guangyuan Hu

Authors
  1. Li Tang
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  2. Jennifer Kuzma
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  3. Xi Zhang
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  4. Xinyu Song
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  5. Yin Li
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  6. Hongxu Liu
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  7. Guangyuan Hu
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Hongxu Liu or Guangyuan Hu.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Search queries of synthetic biology research in Web of Science

(((TS = (“synthetic biolog*” OR “engineering biolog*” OR “synthetic dna” OR “synthetic genom*” OR “synthetic *nucleotide” OR “synthetic promoter” OR “synthetic gene* cluster”) NOT TS = (“photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“synthetic mammalian gene*” AND “mammalian cell”) NOT TS = “photosynthe*”) OR (TS = “synthetic gene*” NOT TS = (“synthetic gener*” OR “photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“artificial gene* network” OR (“artificial gene* circuit*” AND “biological system”)) NOT TS = “gener*”) OR (TS = (“artificial cell”) NOT TS = (“cell* telephone” OR “cell* phone” OR “cell* culture” OR “logic cell*” OR “fuel cell*” OR “battery cell*” OR “load-cell*” OR “geo-synthetic cell*” OR “memory cell*” OR “cellular network” OR “ram cell*” OR “rom cell*” OR “maximum cell*” OR “electrochemical cell*” OR “solar cell*”)) OR (TS = (“synthetic cell”) NOT TS = (“cell* telephone” OR “cell* phone” OR “cell* culture” OR “logic cell*” OR “fuel cell*” OR “battery cell*” OR “load-cell*” OR “geo-synthetic cell*” OR “memory cell*” OR “cellular network” OR “ram cell*” OR “rom cell*” OR “maximum cell*” OR “electrochemical cell*” OR “solar cell*” OR “photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“artificial nucleic acid*” OR “artificial *nucleotide”)) OR (TS = (“bio brick” OR “biobrick” OR “bio-brick”)))).

Appendix 2

Search queries of SynBio safety research in Web of Science

(((TS = (“synthetic biolog*” OR “engineering biolog*” OR “synthetic dna” OR “synthetic genom*” OR “synthetic *nucleotide” OR “synthetic promoter” OR “synthetic gene* cluster”) NOT TS = (“photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“synthetic mammalian gene*” AND “mammalian cell”) NOT TS = “photosynthe*”) OR (TS = “synthetic gene*” NOT TS = (“synthetic gener*” OR “photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“artificial gene* network” OR (“artificial gene* circuit*” AND “biological system”)) NOT TS = “gener*”) OR (TS = (“artificial cell”) NOT TS = (“cell* telephone” OR “cell* phone” OR “cell* culture” OR “logic cell*” OR “fuel cell*” OR “battery cell*” OR “load-cell*” OR “geo-synthetic cell*” OR “memory cell*” OR “cellular network” OR “ram cell*” OR “rom cell*” OR “maximum cell*” OR “electrochemical cell*” OR “solar cell*”)) OR (TS = (“synthetic cell”) NOT TS = (“cell* telephone” OR “cell* phone” OR “cell* culture” OR “logic cell*” OR “fuel cell*” OR “battery cell*” OR “load-cell*” OR “geo-synthetic cell*” OR “memory cell*” OR “cellular network” OR “ram cell*” OR “rom cell*” OR “maximum cell*” OR “electrochemical cell*” OR “solar cell*” OR “photosynthe*”)) OR (TS = (“artificial nucleic acid*” OR “artificial *nucleotide”)) OR (TS = (“bio brick” OR “biobrick” OR “bio-brick”)))) AND ((TS = (“biosafe*” OR “biosecurit” OR “safe*” OR “securit*” OR “risk*” OR “biorisk*” OR “harm*” OR “hazard*” OR “danger*” OR “virulence” OR “toxic*” OR “terror*” OR “bioterror” OR “DURC” OR “dual use” OR “dual-use”)) OR (TS = (“biocontainment” OR “containment” OR “kill switch*”)) OR (TS = (“governance*” OR “government” OR “polic*” OR “law*” OR “legal*” OR “defense*” OR “biodefense” OR “prevent*” OR “precaution*” OR “responsible innovation” OR “responsible research and innovation” OR “responsible research*”) OR (TS = (“regulation”) NOT TS = (“cell regulat*” OR “gene regulat*” OR “gene-regulat*” OR “regulat* of gene*” OR “regulat* of cell*” OR “regulat* of protein” OR “regulat* network*” OR “regulatory element*” OR “regulatory pathway*” OR “regulatory genetic network*” OR “nucleic acids regulatory device*” OR “complex regulatory” OR “regulatory circuit*” OR “regulatory level” OR “regulatory mechanisms” OR “chromatin regulation” OR “regulatory parts” OR “metabolic regulation” OR “regulatory system*”))) OR TS = (“ethic*”)).

Appendix 3

Top research foci of SynBio journals: 1980–2020

CNKI

WoS

Escherichia coli

Mycobacterium Tuberculosis & Leprosy

DNA

Micrornas

Biotechnology

Hiv Prevalence & Prophylaxis

Genetic engineering

Lactic acid bacteria

DBA

Type strain

PCR

Biodegradation

Pichia pastoris

Gut microbiota

RNA

Influenza

Monoclonal antibody

Malaria

Prokaryotic expression

Hiv-1

  1. The top five CNKI journals in our analyzing dataset account for more than 30% of Chinese SynBio publications. In descending order, they are Chinese Journal of Biotechnology, Biotechnology and Business, Chinese Bulletin of Life Sciences, Synthetic Biology Journal, China Biotechnology (tied for fifth), and Biotechnology Bulletin (tied for fifth). The top five WoS journals in our dataset account for 16.8% of SynBio publications written in English. In descending order, they are ACS Synthetic Biology, Metabolic Engineering, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, Microbial Cell Factories, and PLOS ONE

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Tang, L., Kuzma, J., Zhang, X. et al. Synthetic biology and governance research in China: a 40-year evolution. Scientometrics 128, 5293–5310 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-023-04789-0

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