TrendMail-order bioterror nears

Say you have a couple of days on your hands and not much to do, so you decide to create a pathogen. Easier than you think, in fact: Just download the pathogen’s gene sequence information from the Internet and place an order with a gene sequencing company. The genes arrive in the mail a couple of days later. Mix them in your basement lab and then release on an unprotected public. Now, this is mail-order bioterrorism in its purest form. Reason’s Ronald Bailey, in a detailed and very useful discussion, writes that most experts agree that basement bioterrorism as described above is not quite likely right now, “but rapid improvements in the technologies that allow researchers to generate genetic material starting from just information and raw chemicals could make such bioterror attacks possible in the next decade or so.” The synthesis of entire viral genomes — the complete set of genetic information of these microbes — has already been done by legitimate researchers. Recall these two recent examples: In 2002 one team constructed the polio virus us­ing only published DNA sequence information and mail-ordered raw materials. In 2005 another group similarly reconstituted the 1918 pandemic influenza virus that killed tens of millions of people (see reference below to Terrence M. Tumpey et al.).

Such feats are becoming easier by the year. Currently there are at least twenty-five companies in the United States and twenty-one others around the world which are capable of manufacturing gene-length stretches of DNA. The cost and ease of gene synthesis have fallen more than fifty-fold and is being halved every thirty-two months. In addition, fifteen firms in the United States and seven foreign companies sell new or refurbished DNA synthesizers. Tens of thousands of these machines have been manufactured and are widely available. You can buy used ones on eBay.

How fast do researchers and policymakers need to move to prevent synthetic genomics from being abused? Bailey says that the good news is that the best judgment of the researchers is that synthesizing pathogens like the smallpox virus is still too complicated for would-be bioterrorists. For the near-term, bioterrorists are more likely acquire pathogens the old-fashioned way, by stealing them from labs or isolating them from the wild. The authrotiative Venter report (see below; the report was written by Michele Garfinkel and others, but is named after the J. Craig Venter Institute), however, takes “as a given that now, or within a few years, any virus with a known sequence can or will be able to be constructed in a relatively straightforward manner.” The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) 2004 report, Biotechnology Research in the Age of Terrorism, identifies seven classes of risky experiments which merit special scrutiny: Specifically, experiments that (1) demon­strate how to render a vaccine ineffective; (2) confer resistance to therapeutically useful drugs; (3) enhance the virulence of a pathogen or rendering a nonpathogen viru­lent; (4) increase transmissibility; (5) alter host range; (6) enable the evasion of a di­agnostic or other detection; and (7) enable weaponization.

Bailey contends that we should be careful and smart when it comes to monitoring biotechnology research, but he emphasizes:

“A robust biotech research sector that is not hobbled by excessive regulation is our best defense against bioterrorism (and natural pathogens). Instead of being a threat to our safety, rapid progress in biotech will enable us to quickly identify pathogens, either man-made or natural, and create fast and effective treatments for them.”

-further reading:

-Eckard Wimmer, “The Test-tube Synthesis of a Chemical Called Poliovirus: The Simple Synthesis of a Virus Has Far-reaching Societal Implications,” EMBO Reports (July 2006)

-Terrence M. Tumpey et al., “Characterization of the Reconstructed 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic Virus,” Science 310. no. 57457 (October 2005): 77-80 (DOI: 10.1126/science.1119392) (sub. req.)

-Hans Bügl et al., “DNA Synthesis and Biological Security,” Nature Biotechnology 25, No. 6 (June 2007): 627-29

-Michele Garfinkel et al., Synthetic Genomics: Options for Governance (Rockville, Md.: J. Craig Venter Institute, and Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategy and International Security, October 2007)

-National Research Council, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism (National Academies Press, 2004)