SYNBIOSAFE is a scientific project supported fully by the European Commission´s 6th framework programme. It is the first European project to research the safety and ethical aspects of synthetic biology, and aims to proactively stimulate a debate on these issues.

Biohackery: Some synthetic biologists argue for an open source approach enabling also individuals outside the traditional biotech community to engineer living systems. As an ultimate consequence this would mean that anybody who wants to could invent a biological system and pull it off, without having to go through a big research process to do it. If this would become a reality then we will see a large number of biohackers and garage biologists who design and produce new life forms as they please, with no oversight in place.