Lloyd’s has warned that the industry need to be invited to play a significant role in the global debate over the use of synthetic biology.

In a new report entitled ‘Synthetic Biology: Influencing development’ by the market’s Emerging Risks team Lloyd’s says while the potential of the use of genetic alteration to create the fuel, and food sources of the future could go some way to solving the issues such as global famine, and climate change too little is know of the risks and there needs to be a global regulatory standard for the use of the technology.

There are also other threats and the manipulation of genetic material to create new organisms and systems that do not occur naturally and to effectively ‘redesign life’ including some other more sinister applications. What makes the technology so potentially disturbing is that it doesn’t use existing DNA from two organisms to create a hybrid organism it constructs the new organism from scratch.

Trevor Maynard of the Emerging Risks team at Lloyd’s and contributor to the report said: "Its ease-of-use invokes fears in some that terrorists will find it possible to develop ‘bioterror’ weapons—so the approach to regulation differs around the world, as does public opinion. And scientists can’t predict how new life forms will affect delicate ecosystems or human health."

The report contends that the insurance industry has to be involved in the global discussions around the use and application of the technology as it will be the industry that will fundamentally be asked to assume much of the risk as synthetic biology is utilised in the commercial sector.

Similar to the issues surrounding nanotechnology the potential effects of the science on the population and the environment could be immense and as such the report believes insurers need to join with governmental agencies and other interested parties to discuss the science, its use and the regulations which will be used to govern it.

For insurers, the potential liabilities if anything goes wrong could be catastrophic; they need to consider whether they wish to be exposed to such huge risks, said the report.

"This suggests a need to tread very carefully. Like insurers, companies engaged in such development should consider high impact and low probability events in their risk assessments," said Mr Maynard.