Civic Epistemology and Governance Issues on Gene Editing

Today genome editing is widely debated as its future impact on life science and related industry. While regulatory status of the product derived from genome editing is not yet articulated by many countries, basic understanding of developers tends to regard the product as non-GM if the product does not incorporate foreign gene into their genome. Since little survey research to consumers has been done, whether the above-mentioned understanding would be taken for granted by the public remain unanswered.

Based on the result of survey research which we have conducted in Japan, the paper will shed light on the different perception between researchers and general consumers. In contrast to researchers, consumers tend to be more cautious in terms of risk and unintended impact. In general, consumers place genome editing closer to GM rather than non-GM. This is somehow opposite outcome compared with researchers’ understanding of the techniques which could be closer to conventional breeding. Desirable governance of genome editing is also discussed based on the survey.

If we understand that the techniques should be regarded as just one component of emerging system of innovation across the field, such as synthetic biology, gene drive, precision breeding and so on, I argue, the nature of governance needs to be broaden and reconsidered since the impact of this complex innovation would have various implications beyond agriculture and food, such as dual use and natural resource management.