Hi! I'm Kiara, and I'm building a third-party certification label for genetically engineered consumer products called the Genetic Engineering Transparency Label.

Think of it like the organic label but for biotech. Companies can apply for the label and get independently audited for metrics in human safety, effectiveness, social responsibility, and environmental sustainability. If they pass, they will earn the right to display the label on their product that people can look for to know that the product passed these metrics.

My mission is to help consumers hold companies accountable, while also giving companies a way to show their commitment to transparency: that their products are safely made, effective, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable through third-party verification. I want to bridge the gap between curious consumers and responsible innovators by emphasizing transparency as the way to move forward together.

We need trustworthy, independent testing so that people can make their own choices about what they put in their bodies!

What I need your help with: I am starting fully from scratch here, and for me to be able to do this full time for the next two years I need about $400K total. This will cover two years of my salary, fair consultant wages for the experts I’ll bring in, legal costs, design work, and testing infrastructure. I will also be reaching out to foundations for this money, but reaching the first 30k goal would allow me to get the legal and initial marketing help to get this off the ground.

Here are the big things I want to achieve in the next 6 months with this money:

A year from now, I hope to:

In the years ahead: Once we have a set of products tested and approved for labeling, I want to start getting even more interested products and incorporate this label as a nonprofit. As with other certification labels, the fees that companies will pay for testing will make this a self-sustaining project.

I made a basic website so you can learn more about the project. It's bare bones (I need money to pay a real designer) but I hope it is helpful: https://getransparency.org/

Why I am the right person to build this: Consumers are drowning in information from dubious sources, and navigating the noise around biotechnology is so difficult, even for scientists. As a scientist myself, I understand how scary it is to communicate our work to non-scientists and not wanting to cause distrust.

I got my Ph.D. in Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology at Rice University where I used genetic engineering to study how genes move between organisms in the environment. I also spent the last year co-hosting a seminar series on the many non-technical dimensions of using biotechnology in the environment, highlighting voices in synthetic biology, ecology, history, policy, indigenous data sovereignty, and science and technology studies (website here https://www.bakerinstitute.org/synthetic-biology-emer-webinar-series ). I co-authored a paper on the importance of integrating human and ecological communities into the governance of biotechnology (open access paper here: https://www.sciencepolicyjournal.org/article_1038126_jspg260203.html ). I also have a track record of building things from the ground up: I helped start a composting program at my undergraduate university, and I’ve done advocacy work for international students and LGBTQ+ folks in high school and university.

What this means is that I have the biological expertise to deeply understand what makes an ingredient safe or not, the experience in bringing many different perspectives together towards a shared goal of a more just and sustainable world, and the values to protect our environment and people. I am also a consumer that struggles to find sustainable and healthy choices at the grocery store for my own family. I’m making a label that will make that easier for everyone.

If you can contribute anything at all, I would truly appreciate it! I am so excited to build this label and can’t wait to show you what’s next.