Born 16 August 1956 in Amsterdam. Between 1974 and 1985 Ton Baars studied biology and ecology at university to MSc level. During this time he volunteered on a biodynamic farm at Badhoevedorp before attending a part time course on biodynamic farming at Kraaybeekerhof, Driebergen. Subsequently he taught biology and Goethean science on that course. For his National (Civil) Service he worked at three biodynamic dairy farms gaining experience in biodynamic farming methods and Gouda and fresh cheese processing. In 1984 he went on to teach cheese processing at Warmonderhof, Kerk-Avezaath which offers education in biodynamic farming systems. In 1986 he took up a research post at the Louis Bolk Instituut, Driebergen where he became head of the Agriculture Department. In 1994 he transferred to his present post as head of the Institute’s Department of Grassland and Animal Production which has a staff of nine.

His EU funded research projects include: partnership with AIR-project ‘Economics of conversion’ (co-ordinator F. MacNaiedhe, Teagasc, Ireland); partnership with concerted actions ‘European Network for Researchers in Organic Farming’ (co-ordinator J. Isart, Spain); ‘Network for Animal Health and Welfare in Organic Agriculture’ (co-ordinator M. Hovi, VEERU, UK). Ton Baars is a member of international FOA-lowland pasture group for grass/white clover (co-ordinator J. Frame, Scotland). In 2002 he will submit his PhD thesis on research methodologies within organic grassland and animal science.

Timothy Brink has been a biodynamic farmer for 25 years. He farmed for many years at the Copake Camphill Community in the Hudson River Valley of New York State. From 1984 - 2001 he established and developed the Loch Arthur Camphill Community Farm in Southwest Scotland. His special interests have been cattle and sheep, especially breeding closed herds and flocks for biodynamic farming, and cereal growing. During the past six years Timothy has become involved with Demeter certification in the UK. He was chairman of the Demeter Standards Committee of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association for three years. At the beginning of 2001 he stopped farming in order to take up the position of Demeter Development Manager. In this position he supports Demeter producers throughout the country and works to develop Demeter Standards and the Demeter Certification Scheme, part of the United Kingdom Register of Organic Foods Standards (UKROFS).

Donald Bruce is trained as a chemist and worked for 15 years in nuclear energy research and safety assessment for BNFL Sellafield, UKAEA Harwell and HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, the latter on the safety case of the Sizewell B PWR and on severe accident risk analysis. He has also worked on energy policy for the Chief Scientist’s Group of the then UK Department of Energy. In 1992 he did a diploma in theology at Oxford University before taking up his present post.

He has been a member of the bioethics working group of the Conference of European Churches since 1993. He is an official observer to the International Bioethics Committee of UNESCO and the Global Summit of National Bioethics Committees. He is also a member of the International Association of Bioethics, the European Society for Agriculture and Food Ethics, the Society for Risk Analysis, the Society for Philosophy and Technology, Christians in Science and the Science Religion Forum. He is a member of the Church of Scotland’s Apologetics Committee and the Church and Nation Committee.

After obtaining her Teaching Diploma at Oxford, specialising in English and French, she taught for many years in both state and Waldorf schools in the UK. Since Ifgene was founded in 1995 she has assisted with the UK co-ordination and taken part in its workshops in UK and overseas. She has written on the subject of genetic engineering and throughout her life has pursued an interest in philosophy and religion. She runs a productive fruit and vegetable garden which she manages using biodynamic methods.

Dr. Margaret Colquhoun studied zoology and genetics with agricultural acience at Edinburgh University in the 1960s and worked there as a Research Associate in the 1970s on questions of population genetics and evolutionary biology. Later on, still carrying questions into the reality and relationship of taxonomy and evolution, she spent four years in the Carl Gustav Carus Institute in Öschelbronn in Germany and at the Natural Science Section in Dornach, Switzerland learning to use the Goethean scientific methodology. Since then she has both taught and researched extensively using Goethean science in Britain with a special interest in landscape, medicinal plants and animal evolution. She is also the director of the Pishwanton Project of the Life Science Trust, an Educational Charity working on environmental issues in South East Scotland.

Ben Davies studied Philosophy and English Literature as an undergraduate at York University and following graduation spent a year and a half as an environmental journalist. He returned to academia in 1994 to study a Masters in Ecological Economics at Edinburgh University, writing his thesis on rationality assumptions underlying contingent valuation. Since then he has worked predominantly in agricultural economics, both as a Researcher at the Scottish Agricultural College, Edinburgh and as a Research Fellow in the Agricultural Economics Unit, University of Exeter, studying supply chain mangement in the beef sector. In 1998 he started his PhD on farm decision making at the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge, focusing on the role of farmers' value systems in environmental management. He has coauthored a textbook, 'Ecological Economics: An Introduction', published in 2000, and is a board member of the European Society for Ecological Economics. He currently works as a Researcher in the Socio-Economics Research Programme at the Macaulay Institute, Aberdeen.

Prof. Howard Davies obtained a first class degree in botany at Bristol University in 1973 and his PhD in biochemistry in 1997. He joined the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI) in 1981 after a four year post doctoral fellowship in London University. After spells as Department and Divisional head he now co-ordinates one of SCRI’s three research Themes entitled "Genes to Products". He also manages the research programme "Quality, Health & Nutrition" and is a member of the Institute’s senior management group. Prof. Davies developed the molecular physiology programme at the SCRI with a view to understanding the control of metabolic processes using transgenic biology as a key tool. This includes strategic work on the starch biosynthesis, nitrogen metabolism and developmental processes using potato as the major model crop species. He has published over 120 papers in refereed journals and delivered many invited seminars throughout Europe, the USA and Japan, including many on developments in plant biotechnology. As a result of his expertise and research experience he was appointed to the European Scientific Committee on Plants in 1997, a committee which carries out risk assessment on applications to release commercial GM crops into the environment. In addition to his interests in the regulation of plant metabolism Prof. Davies is also involved in the development and assessment of new profiling approaches which might be used to provide more comprehensive comparisons of the metabolic constituents of GM crops and the non GM parents from which they are derived (i.e. substantial equivalence testing). As such he co-ordinates a £1.4 million programme funded by the Food Standards Agency to assess such profiling technologies as tools to detect unintended effects. He is also involved in European Union funded programmes which have similar aims but with more diverse plant species. He is married with two children.

Dr. Griffin’s remit includes responsibility for Public Relations at Roslin Institute and much of his time over the past three years has been taken up responding to the intense media and public interest in all things cloned.

Dr Griffin graduated from Leeds University in l973 with an honours degree in Biochemistry. Post-doctoral research was carried out in the Department of Biochemistry, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, North Carolina, USA. Dr Griffin joined the Poultry Research Centre in 1978 and his research has largely been concerned with aspects of lipid and membrane biochemistry. His current research is concerned with identifying genes controlling genetic variation in fatness in poultry.

Associate Professor Alastair S. Gunn, Chair of the Department of Philosophy and Associate Dean e-learning in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

He has taught at several universities in New Zealand, Australia, the US and SE Asia. He teaches and researches in applied ethics, specializing in environmental, engineering and health ethics. He has published three books on engineering ethics. He is a member of several ethics committees and is often asked to give policy advice to government agencies in New Zealand. Through his consultancy, Qualia Consultants, he provides ethics training, ethical review and advice to a range of organizations in NZ and internationally.

Michel Haring, Department of Plant Physiology, University of Amsterdam

Michel Haring (b.1961) is a plant molecular biologist with a strong background in genetics and breeding. He did his PhD at the Free University in Amsterdam on mobile genetic elements. He was an EMBO-fellow at the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he studied the molecular basis of blue-light perception in algae. In 1994, together with Christian Hiß, he started a study group on genetic manipulation of plants aimed at informing biodynamic farmers and breeders in Germany. He returned to Amsterdam to become lecturer in phytopathology at the University of Amsterdam. There he studied plant-pathogen interactions using transgenic strategies in tomato. In August 2000 he was appointed Professor of Plant Physiology at the University of Amsterdam. His group specializes in research on stress conditions in plants and the mechanisms used to transduce these signals into a biological response. Lipid and volatile signals are his favourite topics. He is a member of the Dutch Ifgene group and is one of the authors of the report Sustainable organic plant breeding by the Louis Bolk Institute.

http://www.bio.uva.nl/onderzoek/Fytopathologie/

Michael Hauskeller, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany

Dr. Michael Hauskeller teaches philosophy at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany. He has published several books and papers on various subjects but his main interest is in the field of ethics. His moral philosophy may be described as an exploration of the interrelations between aesthetics and ethics, or, more precisely, as an attempt to found morality on certain modes of perception.

Born 1947 in Liverpool. Obtained Ph.D. (Biochemistry) University of Wales in 1976 on the effect of exogenous nucleic acids and their derivatives on metabolism. Research biochemist in academia to 1982 and thereafter in the pharmaceutical industry to 1988. Waldorf School class teacher 1989-1991. Since 1995, UK co-ordinator and webmaster for Ifgene — International Forum for Genetic Engineering.

Self employed. Lectures and writes on genetic engineering issues. Does part time consultancy on GM food issues for the Biodynamic Agricultural Association Demeter Standards Committee and for the United Kingdom Register of Organic Food Standards, a UK government statutory body overseeing the organic food sector. Interests: anthroposophy, philosophy of science, ethics, science & society, gardening, choral singing, Local Agenda 21 initiative.

Christina Henatsch studied Agriculture in Bonn, Germany. After several years practical vegetable gardening on different biodynamic farms in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, she is now at ‘Kultursaat’, the Association for the Development of Biodynamic Vegetable Plant Breeding where she is responsible for national and international contacts and information about the background of organic plant breeding. Together with other farmers she has breeding projects with lettuce, broccoli, beetroot and wheat.

Lynda Hepburn is a graduate in Ecological Science from Edinburgh University. She has 17 years experience in field research and survey predominantly in the Scottish Highlands, studying and recording semi-natural vegetation for conservation purposes. She trained in Goethean Science at the Research Laboratory at the Goetheanum, near Basel, Switzerland in 1993, with a research project on woodland plant communities. Over the last 8 years she has taught Goethean Science to various student groups and at public workshops in and around Edinburgh.

Craig Holdrege was born in Boise, Idaho, and grew up in Boulder Colorado. He majored in philosophy at Beloit College where his interest in biology also began. He then went on to study biology and do research at the scientific research laboratory at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland. He began his career as a high school life science teacher at the Waldorf school in Wuppertal, Germany, where he taught for twelve years. Since then he has also taught life sciences at Hawthorne Valley School, Ghent, New York and is now a founding director of The Nature Institute for phenomena-centred research and education at Ghent, New York. The Nature Institute is dedicated to research and educational activities applying phenomena-centred, holistic methods. Craig Holdrege is the author of the book Genetics and the Manipulation of Life: The Forgotten Factor of Context (Lindisfarne Press, Hudson NY, 1996). UK edition: A Question of Genes: Understanding Life in Context, Floris Books, Edinburgh 1996.

Ulrich Loening is a molecular biologist. In the Departments of Botany and then Zoology in the University of Edinburgh, he developed gel eletrophoresis for analysing RNA in detail and used this to study the progress of RNA molecules from the cell nucleus and its processing and transport to the cytoplasm. This work also showed how bacterial ribosomal RNA was distinct from that of plants and animals and that it evolved in size in the latter. Since there are no intermediate forms between prokaryote and eukaryote RNA, the work confirmed that chloroplasts must have evolved from capture or symbiosis of blue-green algae. Call this process natural genetic engineering if you like!

Following long-held interests, and with the founding and repeatedly threatened closure of the Centre for Human Ecology in the 1970’s, he became more and more involved with society’s ecological impacts. He became Director of CHE in 1984, and retired in 1995. In 1989 he helped in setting up a large organic farming research and demonstration centre. Now with the re-commencement of the independent CHE’s MSc course, he is ‘founding Chair’ of the Academic Board. He also founded and runs a small "sustainable forest" timber company.

He is a member of the Henry Doubleday Research Association and of the Soil Association and has grown his organic vegetables for the last half century!

Lino Enrique Paula, Biology Faculty, University of Leiden, Netherlands

Dr. Lino Enrique Paula, graduated in chemistry/molecular biology at Leiden University, NL and in Biotechnology Law and Ethics at Sheffield University, UK (with distinction). He also holds university certificates in Environment Management and Biomedical Sciences. He joined the department of Animals and Society at Utrecht University in 1999 where he focuses on public policy regarding animal biotechnology. He is also a lecturer in Biology and Society at the Biology Faculty of Leiden University. He is a member of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) Task Group on Public Perceptions of Biotechnology, board member of the Dutch Biotechnology Society and a member of the Animal Experiments Committee of Leiden University and of Leiden University Hospital. Previously he has worked for the EFB (assistant co-ordinator network on public perceptions) and for the Dutch Ministry of the Environment (review of biosafety legislation).

He has recently published a 2-year policy study, commissioned by the Rathenau Institute, on the working practises of the Dutch national animal biotechnology ethics committee, which is the central element in the Dutch animal biotechnology legislation. He is currently involved in a Rathenau project on food genomics, for which he assesses the impact of food genomics on animal use.

Sylvie Pouteau is a plant biologist specialised in genetics and developmental biology. After a Master Degree in Microbiology and studies at the Pasteur Institute, she graduated as an Agronomy Engineer at the National Institute of Agronomy of Paris-Grignon (INA-PG) in 1987 and obtained her PhD in Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology at INA-PG in 1991, as a Scientific Attaché of the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA). She has been a scientist at INRA since 1992 and spent 3 years in UK at the University of Reading and at the John Innes Institute in Norwich between 1992 and 1995. She has been a member of the International Forum for Genetic Engineering (Ifgene) since 1997 and became a member of the ETHOS group of Economic and Social Ethics at INRA in 1999. She is interested in the ethical issues of genetic engineering, in food chain ethics, and in plant science ethics. She organised workshops on food chain ethics and on technological innovations and the public debate at ETHOS Study Courses at INRA in 1999 and 2000.

Caspian Richards, Socio Economics Research Programme, The Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen

Caspian Richards works for the Macaulay Institute as a researcher specialising in the use of qualitative research methods to understand value differences underlying environmental conflicts, and participatory methods as a means of resolving and/or managing these conflicts. He has a Ph.D from the Department of Geography and Environment, University of Aberdeen, and an M.Phil in Social Anthropology and M.A in Social & Political Science from the University of Cambridge. His current research projects include work on socio-economic aspects of the EU Water Framework Directive, on wildlife management conflicts, and on public debates on the use of GMOs in food production.

Ruth Richter, Plant Morphologist, Naturwissenschaftliche Sektion, Goetheanum, Switzerland

Ruth Richter, professional gardener with extensive practical experience in biodynamic farming and gardening. From 1989 to 1994 carried out a training and research project in Goethean Science at the Research Institute at the Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland. Now specializes in projects on medicinal plants with emphasis on optimizing cultivation for commercial production. Current project: holistic approaches to assessing the quality of transgenic plants by morphological methods.

Holmes Rolston, III, is University Distinguished Professor and Professor of Philosophy at Colorado State University. He is often called "the father of environmental ethics" as an academic discipline. His published work was among the earliest in the field, collected in his Philosophy Gone Wild, and systematized in his Environmental Ethics, both of which have become classics in the field. His Conserving Natural Value has reached a wider audience of conservation biologists. Across his career he has published over one hundred articles, and his articles have been reprinted over one hundred times, translated into two dozen languages. He is a founding co-editor of the journal Environmental Ethics, continuing across more than a quarter of a century. He was the founding president of the International Society for Environmental Ethics, the leading professional society in the field. At Colorado State he has developed the best-known graduate program in environmental ethics in the world, producing dozens of graduate students, some of whom have since become themselves leaders in the discipline and in conservation biology, policy, and ethics. Rolston’s interest in the concept of nature extended in his Science and Religion: A Critical Survey, and he gave the prestigious Gifford Lectures, University of Edinburgh, 1997-1998, published as Genes, Genesis and God. Advocating environmental ethics, he has lectured on all seven continents. He is featured in Fifty Key Thinkers on the Environment, past and present, as among the most influential contemporary scholars.

Dr Judyth Sassoon graduated from Oxford in 1992 with a PhD in microbial biochemistry. For the past 10 years she has worked as an independent researcher and lecturer at Universities in Switzerland and Japan. In 2002, she moved back to the U.K. to take up the position of assistant group leader and staff researcher at the University of Bath. Much of her published work to date has been on the structure and function of microbial proteins, including antioxidant enzymes, and her work is now focusing on the role of antioxidants in diseases of the nervous system.

She has had a long-term interest in the philosophy and ethical implications of modern biology and has been strongly influenced by the works of Rudolf Steiner in both her work and daily life. She has always been fascinated by the intricate world of bacteria and fungi and as a result of her interest in Steiner’s ideas, has developed some original views on microbial ecology and biochemistry.

Clive Spash lectures on ecological and environmental economics in the Department of Land Economy and is Director of Cambridge Research for the Environment. He has recently been appointed to the Research Chair in the Department of Agriculture and Forestry at the University of Aberdeen and program head for socio-economic research at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute (starting September 2001).

Over the years he has been an active member of several professional associations in the area of economics and the environment and is currently President of the European Society for Ecological Economics.

He is co-editor of Environment and Planning, C: Government and Policy and on the editorial boards of Environmental Values and Ecological Economics.

Research in recent years has concentrated upon environmental valuation with regard to the use and role of cost-benefit analysis, and environmental attitudes and beliefs with relation to preference formation and social psychology. Applications have included biodiversity valuation, the enhanced greenhouse effect, environmentally sensitive areas, and air pollution impacts on agriculture. Modelling of intergenerational issues and environmental ethics have also been subjects of interest. Major projects have included work for The World Bank, the European Commission, and the UK Department of Environment Transport and the Regions.

His publications can be found in books and academic journals such as Ecological Economics, Environmental Values, International Journal of Environmental Pollution, Journal of Economic Surveys, Journal of Environmental Management, Review of Political Economy.

Richard obtained a degree in chemistry in 1970. Later on, he went on to study picture-forming methods for the assessment of biological materials at the Swedish Biodynamic Research Institute in Järna Sweden under the direction of Bo Petterson and Magda Engqvist. Since then, he has pursued a career as a house parent, administrator and occasional gardener in Camphill Communities, which cares for people with special needs. He continued work in Goethean science for several years and was until recently a trustee of the Life Science Trust, Scotland. He is a Council Member of the Biodynamic Agricultural Association (UKROFS organic certifier under the Demeter standard) and edits its journal ‘Star and Furrow’. He manages the Association’s web site and is the UK contact person for the Naturwissenschaftliche Sektion am Goetheanum, Dornach, Switzerland.

Kelly A. Tudhope, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand.

Kelly A. Tudhope is studying for a Bachelor of Law and Bachelor of Social Science with a major in Philosophy. She has particular interests in environmental and human rights law and environmental ethics. She has presented papers at several New Zealand conferences and has published in New Zealand journals.

Born in 1938. Studied biology at Amsterdam University. Worked at the Department of Theoretical Biology of Leiden University from 1968 till 1999. Specialisation in philosophy of science (biology) and society and bioethics. Philosophical dissertation on ‘Science and the social responsibility of natural scientists’ in 1980. Member of the Dutch Advisory Committee on Animal Experimentation between 1983 and 1993. Member of Dutch Advisory Committee on Animal Biotechnology and Ethics from 1989 until 1999. Member of Dutch Advisory Committee of Genetic Modification, dealing with the social and ethical aspects of the deliberate release of GMOs, from 1990 till the present. Invited as an international scholar to the Hastings Centre of Bioethics in the USA (1990).

Since 1999 working at the Louis Bolk Instituut, an independent research institute in the field of organic agriculture, as co-ordinator of the Dutch Ifgene group and researcher on ethical values such as ‘naturalness’ implied in organic agriculture. The Louis Bolk Instituut is an institutional member of the European Society for Agricultural and Food Ethics (EurSafe).

Lectured on diverse subjects: the relation between science and ethics, environmental ethics, Goethe’s philosophy of nature, animal ethics (especially the concepts of the intrinsic value and integrity of animals), the role of ethical committees and public debates, ethics and biotechnology.

Dr. Francoise Wemelsfelder is a biologist specialised in animal behaviour and animal welfare, with an interest in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science. In 1993 she completed her PhD at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands, on the topics of animal subjectivity and animal suffering. She then moved to Scotland with the aim of developing a research approach that addresses animals as subjects rather than objects. She works mainly with pigs and leads a research programme on qualitative animal welfare assessment, which includes participatory work with pig farmers and stockpeople.

Francoise is a UK representative on the EU COST working group on on-farm welfare assessment, where she chairs a subworking group on the integration of on-farm welfare measurements. She lectures in animal consciousness and animal ethics on the MSc in Animal Behaviour and Animal Welfare at Edinburgh University, and on the MSc in Holistic Science at Schumacher College in Devon. She is an honorary research fellow of the Psychology Department of Edinburgh University.

www.sac.ac.uk

Bruce Whitelaw pursues his research at the Roslin Institute. Prior to this he worked at the Institute for Animal Physiology and Genetics Research, and the Animal Breeding Research Organisation. He obtained his BSc from the University of Edinburgh, going on to do his PhD at the Beatson Institute of the University of Glasgow in 1987. His thesis was "An analysis of the transcriptional control domains of the human c-myc proto-oncogene" under the guidance of Dr. Neil Wilkie. He is currently a Principal Investigator at the Roslin Institute in the Department of Gene Expression and Development headed by Profs. John Clark and Ian Wilmut.

Bruce Whitelaw is also Head of the Small Animal Unit at Roslin, on the Roslin Institute’s Animal Ethics Committee, Editor of the journal Transgenic Research, on the Management Committee of the EU COST 20B Action and a member of the HSE’s Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification (ACGM). He has given over 40 seminars both within the UK and Internationally, lectures to two Honours courses at the University of Edinburgh and advises the EC on grant proposals under the Framework scheme. In 2000, he gave an invited seminar at a EU Task Group Workshop on "Public Perception of Transgenic Animals".

His research uses molecular genetics to investigate how gene expression is regulated; working on the premise that this is the basis from which novel applications of molecular genetics can be exploited. He has been involved in GMO animal research for over 15 years and was part of the team that developed the idea that human pharmaceuticals can be produced in the milk of transgenic animal bioreactors. His research is funded by the EC, commercial sources and the BBSRC.

Dr. Johannes Wirz, biologist, PhD thesis in molecular developmental biology of Drosophila at the University of Basel (CH); scientist at the Research Institute at the Goetheanum in Dornach (CH) since 1987; research activities: genetics of adaptive mutations in Drosophila, morphological studies of transgenic potatoes, ecology of butterflies, bee-keeping without varroa mite control; co-ordinator of Ifgene, editor of Elemente der Naturwissenschaft.