Yesterday at Synthetic Biology 7.0 in Singapore, we had a good discussion about the intersection of conservation, biodiversity, and synthetic biology. I said I would post a few papers relevant to the discussion, which are below.

These papers are variously: the framing document for the original meeting at the University of Cambridge in 2013 (see also "Harry Potter and the Future of Nature"), sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Society; follow on discussions from meetings in San Francisco and Bellagio; and my own efforts to try to figure out how quantify the economic impact of biotechnology (which is not small, especially when compared to much older industries) and the economic damage from invasive species and biodiversity loss (which is also not small, measured as either dollars or jobs lost). The final paper in this list is my first effort to link conservation and biodiversity with economic and physical security, which requires shifting our thinking from the national security of nation states and their political boundaries to the natural security of the systems and resources that those nation states rely on for continued existence.

"Is It Time for Synthetic Biodiversity Conservation?", Antoinette J. Piaggio1, Gernot Segelbacher, Philip J. Seddon, Luke Alphey, Elizabeth L. Bennett, Robert H. Carlson, Robert M. Friedman, Dona Kanavy, Ryan Phelan, Kent H. Redford, Marina Rosales, Lydia Slobodian, Keith WheelerTrends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 32, Issue 2, February 2017, Pages 97–107

Robert Carlson, "Estimating the biotech sector's contribution to the US economy", Nature Biotechnology, 34, 247–255 (2016), 10 March 2016

Kent H. Redford, William Adams, Rob Carlson, Bertina Ceccarelli, “Synthetic biology and the conservation of biodiversity”, Oryx, 48(3), 330–336, 2014.

"How will synthetic biology and conservation shape the future of nature?", Kent H. Redford, William Adams, Georgina Mace, Rob Carlson, Steve Sanderson, Framing Paper for International Meeting, Wildlife Conservation Society, April 2013.

"From national security to natural security", Robert Carlson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11 Dec 2013.