Page - 99 - in Critical Issues in Science, Technology and Society Studies - Conference Proceedings of the 17th STS Conference Graz 2018

Technology Assessment of Gene Drives FRIESS, Johannes (1), GIESE, Bernd (2), VON GLEICH, Arnim (1) (1) Department of Technology Design and Development, University of Bremen, Germany (2) Institute of Safety and Risk Sciences (ISR), University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, BOKU Vienna, Austria The GeneTip Project One of the goals in the project GeneTip: “Genetic innovations as triggers of phase transitions in animal and plant population dynamics" is the technology characterization of gene drive techniques. The project is a collaboration between the University of Bremen, TestBiotech in Munich, the University of Vechta in Lower Saxony and the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. The GeneTip project looks at gene drives and self-propagating artificial genetic elements (SPAGEs) from a prospective risk analysis point of view and tries to identify hazard and exposure potentials in the development. It also analyzes their potential applications in order to give recommendations for a safer design and development path as well as regulations, taking into account the precautionary principle. But at the earliest phase of such innovations stands the prospective technology assessment with a technology characterization as its first step. Prospective Technology Assessment and Characterization Technology characterizations examine emerging technologies from a prospective point of view. In the early phases of technology development and innovation the knowledge about possible adverse effects is very low but the potential for maximizing opportunities and minimizing risk is still high [1]. But this will decrease as more and more investments into the technology are made and path dependency increases. Therefore, technology characterization is beneficial in early phases where the design and development paths can effectively be influenced. Analytical investigation in the course of a technology characterization is trying to gain knowledge on potential benefits, reasons for concern, reasons for relief and uncertainties. In order to characterize and compare technologies there are different criteria which need to be considered. These are: the depth of Intervention, divided into its main effects technological power and range, considering its lasting persistence in a population, as well as the range with which it could spread across populations, and the intensity of intervention, divided into contributions by mass and frequency. Where the mass is determined by the quantity of gene drive organisms (GDOs) per release and the frequency represents the number of releases. Reliability concerns the failure probability by listing vulnerabilities within the technology and tries to estimate the probabilities that they will lead to failure of a drive. Besides the technical reliability it is important to check whether there are options for corrective actions after the release of GDOs in the case that greater problems occur. An investigation of these options should answer the question how far a potential damage could be reversed. Gene Drives In genetics, a gene drive is defined as a phenomenon that favorably biases the inheritance of a particular gene or set of genes. It can arise through a variety of mechanisms and results in an 99