Biosensors are one of the potentially transformative applications of nanotechnology. One of the promising application areas is in the agrifood sector, where biosensors could be used for the tracking and monitoring of potentially diseased animals. This proposal is for a workshop to convene multiple critical stakeholders to investigate the ethical and social issues involved in the deployment of biosensors in this domain.
The workshop is conceived as a networking process that will generate and incorporate new interactions and ideas before, during, and after the workshop event. In so doing, the project creates some of the possible conditions for an anticipatory community of practice that is built around discussions of social and ethical issues. Such a community does not presently exist in responnse to the agrifood applications of nano-biosensors.
Broader Impacts: A key outcome will be the beginning of a network map of the supply-chain within which nano-biosensors will be integrated. The information will be used for the development of larger stakeholder workshops that include up to 20-30 participants, and that can generate data on the social and ethical issues. The information will also improve further anticipatory governance activities for non-expert citizens like science cafes and consensus conferences, not just on agrifood, but nanotechnology more generally. For example, some of the ideas on social and ethical issues could be used by rganizers of these activities as the basis for discussion between citizens and experts, and as background material for preparing participants to discuss nanotechnology.
A biosensor is an analytical device composed of a biological sensing element (bioreceptor) in close proximity to a transducer that converts the interaction between the bioreceptor and the target analyte into an electronic signal for direct reporting (Zhang et al. 2009). For example, biosensors are attachable to human skin as a way of monitoring metabolic properties. Applications include the reporting of health problems. Biosensors are also attachable to non-living objects as a way of monitoring objects’ physical and chemical properties while they transition through complex supply chains. Applications include reporting on food spoilage. Our main research activity was a workshop held at Michigan State University over two days in December 2010. Twenty participants represented academe, industry, and the public sector, including eleven specialists in biosensor design and development, zoonosis in livestock, animal production, regulation, tracing and tracking technology, ethics of emerging technology, public engagement, social justice, and both technical and social dimensions of standards development. The workshop consisted of 10 presentations that outlined the potential supply chain contexts in which nanobiosensors would be introduced, and attendant anticipatory governance and justice issues. We learned that introduction of nanobiosensors into agrifood supply chains will pose ethical challenges that have the potential to affect producers, consumers and animal or environmental impacts. For example, some producers may see their economic choices reduced in favor of more powerful corporate and governmental actors. Other actors may feel they were not consulted about how nanobiosensors would fit into their day-to-day business. However, given the many unknowns regarding who will introduce nanobiosensors and who will use and be affected by them, it is impossible to know in advance which outcomes will actually emerge as morally salient. What can be known is that if there are any moral issues at all, they likely will fall into two broad areas, (1) anticipatory governance and (2) justice. The phrase "anticipatory governance" has been introduced to investigate whether nanobiosensors will be introduced through democratic processes or authoritative compulsion. If nanobiosensors are not introduced through democratic processes, then it is reasonable to expect issues such as the failure to appropriately achieve actors’ consent, morally unjustified paternalism, distrust of governmental or corporate actors, and design flaws that pass greater costs and competitive disadvantages onto users and other actors. If nanobiosensors are introduced through democratic processes, then a range of moral issues still remain. These issues may include some of those just listed, but they are more likely to relate to the nature of the processes, such as whether the processes provided meaningful opportunities for stakeholder and public participation and whether they served to change power dynamics in the supply chain. Morally salient relationships particularly relevant to questions of anticipatory governance thus concern autonomy and trust. Justice concerns whether nanobiosensors are introduced in ways that place further stress on disadvantaged populations, such as small producers. If nanobiosensors are not introduced justly, then perceptions of exploitation, social distrust, discrimination, procedural unfairness, and disproportionate impacts (against already disadvantaged groups) are likely to arise. The potential for such perceptions should be understood in dual sense. First, the absence of just procedure increases the probability of social resistance to emerging technology (though such resistance may or may not be realized in any particular case). In this respect, justice is consistent with the presumed economic interests of technology developers. But second, the potential for perceptions of exploitation and distrust is a substantive dimension of nanobiosensors’ consistency with ethical norms for emerging technology. Ethical norms for technology development require that steps be taken to ensure that the supply chain actors least able to exert influence on supply chain structure perceive nanobiosensors to be consistent with their interests. Justice also encompasses questions of how welfare is distributed based on the technology—that is, questions of distributive justice. Morally salient relationships particularly relevant to questions of justice thus concern fairness and risk. Relationships of autonomy also fall under procedural justice, insofar as autonomy concerns whether policy and implementation processes allow people the opportunity to determine their own destinies, as individuals and as groups.
