Biosafety and Bioethics

The advancement in technology is likely to tame several life forms present on earth. Microorganisms are posing a big challenge due to difficulties encountered to control the diseases caused by them. Working with deadly disease-causing microorganisms for their characterization, diagnostics or therapeutics and vaccine development purposes are posing increasingly potential biosafety problems for laboratory workers. Thus, an appropriate biosafe working environment may protect workers from laboratory-induced infections. Biotechnology has the ability to solve the upcoming problems of the world’s increasing population. However, there is often reluctance among the public to accept and support biotechnological products in medicine, industry, or agriculture. There are many safety and ethical issues raised for GM crops and human cloning. Raising transgenic animals and plants has fueled ethical concerns, and the scientists have faced a lot of resistance where genetically modified crop plants or reproductive cloning research of human beings is involved. Thus, biosafety and bioethics are continuously being expanded to combine the rationale of ever-increasing scientific knowledge in biotechnology that is often in conflict with the long-standing social and moral value system of our society.