Collaborating with the enemy? A view from Down Under on GM research partnerships

Abstract This chapter explores the distribution of funding and approvals for GM crops in Australia in order to determine if private interests dominate public research in agricultural biotechnology and if public interests can be served by collaborations with private organizations. Although a highly detailed analysis is not possible given the available data, it is contended that the Australian setting provides a different perspective on the potential for various forms of public-private collaborations in GM research, as well as an excellent test bed for assessing effects of diverse types of funding and institutional arrangements. Three brief GM case studies from the Australian context are presented to explore key issues arising and underlying complexities associated with GM research: (i) drought-tolerant wheat; (ii) high-amylose wheat; and (iii) Vitamin A-enhanced 'super banana'.Rachel A. Ankeny, Heather J. Bray, Kelly A. McKinle

Sharing data to build a medical information commons: from Bermuda to the Global Alliance

The Human Genome Project modeled its open science ethos on nematode biology, most famously through daily release of DNA sequence data based on the 1996 Bermuda Principles. That open science philosophy persists, but daily, unfettered release of data has had to adapt to constraints occasioned by the use of data from individual people, broader use of data not only by scientists but also by clinicians and individuals, the global reach of genomic applications and diverse national privacy and research ethics laws, and the rising prominence of a diverse commercial genomics sector. The Global Alliance for Genomics and Health was established to enable the data sharing that is essential for making meaning of genomic variation. Data-sharing policies and practices will continue to evolve as researchers, health professionals, and individuals strive to construct a global medical and scientific information commons.Robert Cook-Deegan, Rachel A. Ankeny, and Kathryn Maxson Jone

Ferals or food? Does hunting have a role in ethical food consumption in Australia?

Although hunting is pursued by relatively few people in Australia, increasing attention to ‘ethical’ consumption is renewing interest in hunting as a source of ‘ethical’ meat and complicating our views about it as a leisure activity. Most scholarly attention about hunting practices has been focused in Europe and North America, and we argue that Australia provides a unique context for exploring hunting and its association with ethical consumption because of attitudes to native versus introduced animals and gun ownership. With increasing public attention to both animal welfare and ethical consumption, it is timely to revisit public attitudes to hunting as a leisure activity in Australia and explore the values and motivations of recreational hunters.Rachel Ankeny & Heather Bra

How to choose your research organism

Available online 26 December 2019, 101227Despite August Krogh's famous admonition that a ‘convenient’ organism exists for every biological problem, we argue that appeals to ‘convenience’ are not sufficient to capture reasoning about organism choice. Instead, we offer a detailed analysis based on empirical data and philosophical arguments for a working set of twenty criteria that interact with each other in the highly contextualized judgements that biologists make about organism choice. We propose to think of these decisions as a form of ‘differential analysis’ where researchers weigh multiple criteria for organismal choice against each other, and often utilize multidimensional refinement processes to finalize their choices. The specific details of any one case make it difficult to draw generalizations or to abstract away from specific research situations. However, this analysis of criteria for organismal choice and how these are related in practice allows us to reflect more generally on what makes a particular organism useful or ‘good.’Kadhim Kadhim, Melissa E. Middeldorp, Jeroen M. Hendriks, Dennis H. Lau, and Prashanthan Sander

The power of effective study design in animal Experimentation: Exploring the statistical and ethical implications of asking multiple questions of a data set

One of the chief advantages of using highly standardised biological models including model organisms is that multiple variables can be precisely controlled so that the variable of interest is more easily studied. However, such an approach often obscures effects in sub-populations resulting from natural population heterogeneity. Efforts to expand our fundamental understanding of multiple sub-populations are in progress. However, such stratified or personalised approaches require fundamental modifications of our usual study designs that should be implemented in Brain, Behavior and Immunity (BBI) research going forward. Here we explore the statistical feasibility of asking multiple questions (including incorporating sex) within the same experimental cohort using statistical simulations of real data. We illustrate and discuss the large explosion in sample numbers necessary to detect effects with appropriate power for every additional question posed using the same data set. This exploration highlights the strong likelihood of type II errors (false negatives) for standard data and type I errors when dealing with complex genomic data, where studies are too under-powered to appropriately test these interactions. We show this power may differ for males and females in high throughput data sets such as RNA sequencing. We offer a rationale for the use of alternative experimental and statistical strategies based on interdisciplinary insights and discuss the realworld implications of increasing the complexities of our experimental designs, and the implications of not attempting to alter our experimental designs going forward.R.A. Ankeny, A.L. Whittaker, M. Ryan, J. Boer, M. Plebanski, J. Tuke, S.J. Spence

EchidnaCSI: engaging the public in research and conservation of the short-beaked echidna

The short-beaked echidna is an iconic Australian animal and the most-widespread native mammal, inhabiting diverse environments. The cryptic nature of echidnas has limited research into their ecology in most areas; however, from the well-researched and endangered Kangaroo Island echidna population, we understand that the threats include habitat loss, roads, and invasive species. To obtain more information about echidnas Australia-wide, we established the Echidna Conservation Science Initiative (EchidnaCSI) citizen science project. EchidnaCSI calls on members of the public to submit photographs of wild echidnas and learn to identify and collect echidna scats for molecular analysis. To facilitate participation, we developed a smartphone application as well as ongoing social and traditional media activities and community events. In 3 y, more than 9,000 members of the public have downloaded the EchidnaCSI app, collecting 400 scats and submitting over 8,000 sightings of echidnas from across Australia. A subset of submitted scat samples were subjected to DNA extraction and PCR, which validated the approach of using citizen science for scat collection and viability for molecular analysis. To assess the impact of the project through public participation, we surveyed our participants (n = 944) to understand their demographics and motivations for engagement. Survey results also revealed that EchidnaCSI served as a gateway into citizen science more generally for many participants. EchidnaCSI demonstrates the potential for using citizen science approaches to collect high-quality data and material from a cryptic species over a very large geographic area and the considerable engagement value of citizen science research.Tahlia Perry, Alan Stenhouse, Isabella Wilson, Imma Perfetto, Michael W. McKelvey, Michelle Coulson, Rachel A. Ankeny, Peggy D. Rismiller, and Frank Grützne

New technologies: ethics of stem cell research

This article examines the ethical issues associated with human embryonic stem cell (hESC) research, including debates over whether such research is ethically justifiable. It reviews the basic science underlying hESC research and explores distinctions made between reproductive and nonreproductive (therapeutic) cloning, and different sources of embryos and stem cells, as well as their ethical implications. There is no consensus about many of the complex issues associated with hESC research, and debates are likely to continue as the research progresses. © 2008 Copyright © 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.R.A. Anken

Reproductive ethics: new reproductive technologies

Abstract not availableR.A. Anken

Using repertoires to explore changing practices in recent coral research

Rachel A. Ankeny and Sabina Leonell

Model Organisms

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the ‘model organism’ in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing research. We focus on what makes model organisms an important type of model and how the use of these models has shaped biological knowledge, including how model organisms represent, how they are used as tools for intervention, and how the representational commitments linked to their use as models affect the research practices associated with them. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.Rachel A. Ankeny, Sabina Leonell