MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Later this week, a group you have probably never heard of will weigh in on an almost existential question. How far should we go to save a species from extinction? At issue is the use of something called synthetic biology and how, or even if, it should be used to preserve the natural world. NPR's Nate Rott reports.
NATE ROTT, BYLINE: Synthetic biology is kind of a catchall term for an emerging field of science, but for our purposes, think of it as a suite of genetic tools that can be used to modify species. Like, for example, making corals more resilient to heat, plants hardier to endure drought, or in Anthony Waddle's case, frogs more resilient to horrendous diseases like chytrid fungus, a skin disease that effectively suffocates frogs from the outside.
ANTHONY WADDLE: And it's considered the worst pandemic ever, the worst invasive species ever in terms of biodiversity loss.
ROTT: Waddle is a conservation biologist at Macquarie University in Australia.
WADDLE: It's the entire tree of life of amphibians that's being impacted.
ROTT: Waddle was born in Las Vegas and started working with frogs there. His initial focus was on a desert frog dealing with chytrid.
WADDLE: That work was like classic conservation - you know, bringing eggs in from the remaining populations, raising them up, putting them in new sites, augmenting existing sites, surveys - really like your bread-and-butter conservation.
ROTT: And he says it worked really well for that species. They were kept off of the endangered species list. But he says these frogs were almost an exception to the rule. And as he moved to Australia, working with other researchers to help more types of frogs...
WADDLE: I'm being approached by people that are watching species and populations go extinct, and they're desperate for solutions - something that makes the species resilient to the future challenges they're going to face.
ROTT: Which brought him into synthetic biology and the hope that there might be a way to genetically modify at-risk frogs using snippets of DNA from other frogs that already have immunity to the disease.
WADDLE: I see this as the new frontier for conservation. This is our moon landing. You know, we can modernize our entire field, bring it into the 21st century (laughter).
ROTT: Using DNA that already exists in nature as part of the broader solution - the thing is synthetic biology and the idea of releasing genetically modified species into the wild is hugely controversial. So controversial that this week, the World Conservation Congress - a once-every-four-years gathering of the world's top nature conservationists, scientists and decision-makers - will vote on a proposed moratorium, a moratorium that would pause the release of genetically modified species into the wild. Ricarda Steinbrecher is a European biologist and molecular geneticist attending the ongoing meeting in Abu Dhabi.
RICARDA STEINBRECHER: In a way, a moratorium, I think, is a wise tool to say, like, OK, this is developing fast. There is a real push for release, but the outcomes of it are highly risky, and we don't even know whether this stuff will work.
ROTT: The main risk Steinbrecher sees - and there are many - is that once a genetically modified species is released in the wild, it's hard to say what will happen. Will it really work? How will it evolve? What if the changes, however well-intentioned, have unforeseen consequences? And how would you stop them if they become part of the wild?
STEINBRECHER: Not everything one thinks should happen actually works according to the models one has in one's head.
ROTT: Steinbrecher says there are many examples in human history where well-intentioned interventions in nature have gone awry.
STEINBRECHER: Like, if you put a rabbit into an area like Australia, we know what happened - that it became a very invasive species and big problems. Nobody expected that.
SUE LIEBERMAN: There's a tendency to react to new technology with fear.
ROTT: Sue Lieberman is the vice president of international policy with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
LIEBERMAN: You know how they say close the barn door after the horse bolted? This would be closing it after the horse is a hundred miles away. You're calling for a moratorium on something that's already out there.
ROTT: She points to ongoing work releasing genetically modified mosquitoes to slow malaria as an example.
LIEBERMAN: I'm not saying everything that might be done using synthetic biology is all wonderful, and we don't need to be careful. We need to be careful, yes.
ROTT: But she thinks a moratorium is a step too far. Now, the international body voting this week, which includes governments and nonprofits, has no regulatory authority. Its decisions are nonbinding, but it does carry a lot of respect and...
RYAN PHELAN: Everybody cares about reputation.
ROTT: Ryan Phelan is the cofounder and executive director of the nonprofit, Revive & Restore, which provides funding for synthetic biology research.
PHELAN: It's hard to find funding for innovation, and it's even hard for researchers to get permission to do research.
ROTT: Even in their own institutions, if that research is viewed as controversial - and with more than a million species facing extinction within decades, the ever-growing threats of climate change and habitat loss, Phelan says now is not the time to pump the brakes on research.
PHELAN: We just don't have time. I mean, we've - there are 1,500 or some reef-building corals worldwide, and we've already lost probably hundreds of species that we don't even know what they are. They're gone.
ROTT: Advocates for the moratorium like Steinbrecher, who we heard from earlier, agree that there's urgency.
STEINBRECHER: But we have to act wisely.
ROTT: Earlier, I said Steinbrecher is skeptical of synthetic biology for a lot of reasons. Maybe the most philosophical of them is this.
STEINBRECHER: One needs to consider here that the use of genetic engineering in conservation basically represents a paradigm shift, you know, from safeguarding nature for its intrinsic value to redesigning it to fit human preferences, in a way.
ROTT: Many of the researchers using synthetic biology would argue they're using it not for human preference but to safeguard nature. But Steinbrecher's broader point and concern is that it could fundamentally change our relationship with the natural world.
STEINBRECHER: Will we then, still, if we started modifying everything, still have the same care to look after it? Or what has it become then?
ROTT: Will we still view nature as nature? Anthony Waddle, the scientist looking to save frogs, agrees these are huge questions. He agrees they can be scary, but he doesn't think it's fair to view the natural world and wildlife as some kind of intact, immaculate thing. Humans have already changed so many ecosystems and species.
WADDLE: Look at every domestic animal ever. Dogs are a great example. Like, a chihuahua is the same species as a wolf. That's a bigger sin against nature than doing one little gene change. Like, I think people need to acknowledge that we already impact nature in a profound way, and we have the capacity to use it for good for once. And maybe we should just consider it.
ROTT: Regardless of the outcome of this week's vote, there's a couple of things that both sides of this debate agree on - that action is desperately needed to protect nature and that people, like you and me, need to consider these questions because extinction isn't going to stop. And moratorium or not, the question of how far we should go to save a species isn't going away. Nate Rott, NPR News.
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