Advanced materials and modified mosquitoes: The regulation of nanotechnologies and synthetic biology

As this edited volume highlights, the policy and regulatory radars have long been attuned to the challenges and opportunities of technological developments. New technologies and their high- tech derivative products present regulators with a host of difficult, though not always unfamiliar, questions. The first of these usually centres on whether the technology and its products fall within the remit of existing regulatory frameworks. If they do, then 358subsequent questions are likely to include whether the regulatory frameworks are adequate, proceeding to questions of how regulation ought to develop if the current level of intervention is deemed inappropriate. Intuitively, one might expect that new technologies warrant new regulatory responses, especially where they give rise to new commercial applications, new exposure scenarios, new types or magnitudes of risk, or new problems of uncertainty. Experience has shown, however-across time, jurisdictions and technologies-that the most favoured regulatory approach is often the one that is already in place [1-4].