Introduction

In decision 15/31, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity established a process for broad and regular horizon scanning, monitoring and assessment of the most recent developments in synthetic biology. In the same decision, the Conference of the Parties established a multidisciplinary Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Synthetic Biology (AHTEG) to support the process.  

The multidisciplinary AHTEG held its first meeting in July 2023 and agreed on a process for the first cycle of broad and regular horizon scanning, monitoring and assessment of the most recent technological developments in synthetic biology. This process consists of expert-driven submissions by members of the multidisciplinary Expert Group and a literature review conducted by the Secretariat. The process can be found in Annex I of the report of the meeting of the multidisciplinary Expert Group: CBD/SYNBIO/AHTEG/2023/1/3.

Accordingly, the Secretariat has conducted a literature review based on a revised list of trends and issues in synthetic biology. The revision of the list was based on the 2019 report of the Ad Hoc Technical Expert Group on Synthetic Biology, the Open-ended Online Forum on Synthetic Biology, the submissions of information and the publication “Technical Series No. 100: Synthetic Biology”. This literature review aims to quantify the trends and issues in synthetic biology from 2012 to 2023.

The literature review can be accessed here: 2024-Draft_Literature_Review_of _Trends_Synthetic Biology (2012-2023)-REV.docx

The data extracted from Scopus can be downloaded as a .zip file here: 2024-Trends_issues_synbio_data.zip

Instructions

The Secretariat kindly invites Parties and observers to participate in the peer review process by submitting comments on the Excel spreadsheet template, which can be found below. Only comments received on this template will be considered. As a gentle reminder, all submissions must be accompanied by an official letter signed by the CBD National Focal Point or Head of Organization, as appropriate.

The deadline to receive comments is 15 February 2024.

Spreadsheet template: Submission-template-synbio-lit-review-2024.xlsx