BiohackingGrowing concern about amateur “biohackers” creating biological weapons

American and European security agencies have been increasingly focusing on the risk that “biohackers” – scientists who use genome-editing techniques to change life forms by increasing or decreasing the function of genes — could develop biological weapons or other dangerous biological substances.

The problem is not only – or even mostly – with the work of professional scientists. Rather, Professor John Parrington of the University of Oxford’s Department of Pharmacology told the British Science Festival being held this week in Swansea, the real danger lies with amateur scientists around the world who have started to use gene editing techniques after the tools became cheap and readily available.

The Daily Mail reports that most of these amateur scientists are harmless, but that there are fears among other scientists and the security agencies that the gene editing technology could be used to create a new form of deadly virus, or bioweapons.

“Who knows what will happen in the future,” Parrington said, pointing to the prospect of someone making a biological weapon.

“There’s some disquiet among the security services about where this is all leading as you might imagine,” he noted.

He added that scientists at Stanford University had also expressed concerns “that genetic engineering could be out there in the public domain.”

Parrington, author of the popular science books The Deeper Genome: Why there is more to the human genome than meets the eye (2015), said, however, that creating a pathogenic form of bacteria which could cause significant health problems was difficult.

“It’s actually quite difficult and not quite as trivial as some people might think to make a new form of virus that’s lethal,” he said. “That’s partly because nature is quite good at doing that itself and also because of the dangers to the people concerned.”

For the most part, he added, most biohackers – and biohacker groups — were enthusiastic amateurs interested in using the technique for peaceful pursuits.

Parrington said that he knows of one biohacker group in Hackney, east London, whose members were “using genome editing to make a special kind of craft beer.”

“In many ways [biohackers] are people who want to get involved in science, often with no biological experience in the past,” he said.

“Certainly the groups in England have to go through the same procedures of safety [that scientists do].”

Last year Nature reported that amateur biohackers were using cutting-edge techniques like the gene editing tool CRISPR to modify yeast and plants.

One group is attempting to engineer yeast to produce casein, a protein found in milk, to create a new type of vegan cheese. Other biohackers want to tweak yeast to alter the flavor of beer (this is what the Hackney biohacking group is trying to do).

Japanese biohackers are working to reintroduce a gene into blue carnations sold in Japan to make them go back to their natural white state.

The Mail notes that the FBI has set up a special branch within its Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate (WMDD) to tackle the growing risk.

Supervisory Special Agent Edward You from the FBI’s WMDD said last year: “Synthetic biology poses some incredible benefits, but there are some risks involved too.

“Now is the time to be able to identify the vulnerabilities and then start setting up mitigation measures.”

In 2010, You warned that as technologies for editing genomes and conducting biological research become less expensive, the risks of misusing the technology increase.

“You’re having the barrier of entry to do something mischievous, or actually outright nefarious, getting lower, so individuals or groups will be able to conduct potential harm more so than before,” he said.