This is just the beginning. In the future, improved humans will look at us with curiosity, much as we now look at Neanderthals, and wonder how anyone could have lived so primitively.
13
Oh yes of course; everything has to be illegal because people might get hurt, etc. Boo-hoo. That's the reason we don't have garage inventors anymore, or people with lots of hobbies coming up with new products - overprotective Nanny State to the rescue!
I swear, the sooner this loser civilization we have now collapses, the better.
6
"If you could only see what I have seen with your eyes." -Roy Baty
5
Fortunately, these “biohackers” seem to have almost no scientific basis for what they are doing. Trying to make their muscles bigger? Idiotic. Lucky they didn’t get a staph infection.
Being able to purchase reagents and do pretend science with little kits is a long way away from doing anything productive (or harmful).
11
This detail derailed me, "He began dressing exclusively in red polo shirts to avoid the distraction of choosing outfits." Who feels so distracted in choosing an outfit? I personally am far from a sartorial superstar, and yet I like to dress differently for the weather, the social situation I will be in, and for variety. And I don't trust a reporter who merely passes on such a detail without interrogation—people who always only dress in identical outfits (like Steve Jobs) are odd in ways about which I want to know more! Am I overreacting?
8
"Many experts agree that it would be very difficult for amateur biologists of any stripe to design a killer virus on their own."
Far easier than, say, making a homemade A-bomb and with far greater risk to humanity.
Someone out there may be cooking up the biological equivalent of Ice Nine, just because it's cool and godlike. Regulation will never catch up with this, so we are going to need a lot more money spent on agencies like the CDC for these evolving threats.
15
love how the smoking gun become an invisible one and opens the door for for a untraceable one . I guess it is the world we will have to live in for now.
1
Any micro 101 student should recall the Monod curve...This can only help us move from the growth curve to the death curve as fast as possible. Could our species be any more horrible?
10
Everyone seems to have forgotten that nature itself is ahead of the game, and has already come up with all sorts of killer microbes that most people don't worry about because they're either familiar or far away, such as malaria, measles, syphilis, and influenza. Tuberculosis is staging a resurgence; both yellow fever and plague have cropped up recently, and cholera is a threat in places where water is not treated.
Evolution operates on the level of genes and so far it's been more destructively effective than any number of teenagers gene-hacking in garages. We should be paying attention to the ecological factors that promote existing and emergent diseases and not getting panicky over unlikely threats. Dengue, anyone?
13
I know enough about the work that the possibilities are truly scary. Regulation won’t succeed, for the same practical reasons that illicit drugs and malware can’t be eliminated or foreign mollusks kept out of the Great Lakes. Instead, it’s past time to invest heavily in developing defense through detection, characterization, and being prepared to suppress artificial harmful organisms, viruses, and free nucleic acids and proteins, not only those harmful to humans, but those affecting other organisms on which we depend.
32
And i thought that collecting coins and marbles was cool when i was a kid.
9
This is simply horrifying. Biological experiments in the hands of total amateurs and hacker-extortionists. This is far more dangerous than a nuclear bomb because the equipment is readily available and relatively cheap.
Even Einstein did not anticipate how his extraordinary genius would lead to the development of a terrible weapon,. But, at least, a nuclear bomb cannot be made in a garage.
.
A pandemic could be far worse, either by accident or for extortion.
Only qualified students and academics should have access to the necessary technology. I am sure we can trust serious intellectuals like Scott Pruitt or Rick Perry to take this up....
30
The current agenda that includes defunding and tearing down
regulations in this country will have serious consequences. We will find ourselves reacting to a crisis, that had we been managing this, we could have potentially avoided. Disregard for science threatens us all and ignorance will in the end kill us. Every stroke of the pen that defunds science and puts a scientist out of a job, takes us one step closer to a preventable catastrophic event. As the days go by, I am finding myself angrier at those who chose this path for us with their willful ignorance and spiteful votes. I am disgusted with the current leadership who will not stand up for what is right and who know the danger our current administration poses. They do nothing to stop the destruction of all that protects us as citizens for nothing more than spite and greed. I can only hope that our representatives change their willful loss of dignity and ethics to turn this around. The longer we get pulled into the gutter and our government abandons us for greed and power, the harder it will be to rebuild the safe guards in place that protect us. The current leadership cannot be voted out soon enough.
43
As humans overpopulate and damage the planet, it only makes sense that someone eventually figures out a way to reduce the population, or even eliminate it, by creating the virus/germ that does the trick, even if by accident. It’s the logical conclusion to the arc of species development.
Nuclear war, artificial intelligence, carbon fuel exhaust, plastics filling the oceans: next up, a kid creates the deadly spliced DNA product that wipes out humankind.
Much more efficient.
24
Right on!
4
The government should make this unregulated "science" illegal. Any company selling equipment to these people or aiding in any other way must be held accountable. There are many criminal examples of unregulated use of existing scientific knowledge. How long will it be before some mad scientist turns something like nerve gas into a weapon to be use in a public area (remember the terror in the Japanese subway)?
Enforcement will be a difficult task and so is controlling the borders of the United States of America. Nevertheless, "law and order" must prevail.
17
With a president who considers pregnant immigrants a greater national security threat than cyber-espionage, it seems unlikely that anyone in his administration is going to do anything about this kind of looming catastrophe. Unless they can figure out a way to make it pay off.
27
The article doesn't stress the danger of "weaponization" of biological materials. Think of the damage that hostile nations or groups (or individuals) could cause by creating pathogens which attack crops and animals as well as humans. There is great promise in controlling disease and birth defects and also tremendous hazards. If you wish to educate your self, there are worse place to start than Doudna and Sternberg's A Crack in Creation. Doudna also has a talk in 2017 on Youtube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q47IOSZ5H_U
17
A few hundred years from now people will look back at this time and refer to it as the Age Of Credulity, a time when masses of people bought the snake oil that all change is progress, that "disruption" is inherently good, that the internet can be made secure, that unintended consequences can be neutralized with an apology.
Cheap armed drones, 3-D printers making AK-47s, and who knows what's next, as our secular religion, democratized technological "progress", continues to hold sway.
We had a chance. Nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to stop and think, but we didn't. Or maybe we couldn't, that being the fundamental question which I leave to others to address.
The commercialization and subsequent nationalization of science -- phenomena respectively about 150 and 75 years old -- combined with the democratization of technology have lead us to the current situation, where gene-edited organisms can be created that might wipe out a sizeable chunk of humanity, either intentionally by those rooting for Armageddon and the Apocalypse, or unintentionally by those who believe marketing hype about no dangers, or by those whose hubris leads them to believe there are no such things as unintended consequences, no things out of their control.
30
Que será será.
2
Can we outlaw this ASAP? It seems the potential for castastrophe is much, much higher than any potential gain.
18
What could go wrong? Polish up that Darwin award. A recipient is on the horizon.
12
What a scare article!
It's like suggesting that "2 Steves" (Jobs and Wozniak) could actually build a sophisticated computer in a garage. Impossible!
18
This is some of the most inaccurate/misleading reporting I've ever read. The 'biohackers' in his piece, especially Zayner, are jokes who accomplish very little but enjoy the attention of reporters.
The expert cited, Koblentz, has never had any training in biology. He clearly has made a career out of peddling nonsense. What Evans did was take a publically available smallpox sequence and inserted it into a viral genome. To do this, you need $100,000 of DNA synthesis, a molecular biology lab, and a cell culture laboratory. Any virologist at a university could accomplish this, but it's out of the reach of amateur biohackers.
I hope some ignorant people don't end up reading this garbage and start thinking we need more regulations on hobbyist science. Texas banned Erlenmeyer flasks due to chemophobia!
13
Exactly. In a world full of sheeple and chicken-littles, there isn't much actual life to be had for those with an IQ above room temperatures.
2
I agree that the article is clearing aiming to provoke alarm by focusing on people like Zayner, but I don't think it's really exaggerating the potential for harm. You forget to mention that George Church was interviewed, too. I would not consider him a slouch. (Wikipedia: " George Church, professor at Harvard & MIT, co-author of 480 papers, 130 patent publications & the book "Regenesis", developed methods used for the first genome sequence (1994)....He co-initiated the BRAIN Initiative (2011) & Genome Projects (1984, 2005) to provide & interpret the world's only open-access personal precision medicine datasets.")
“To unleash something deadly, that could really happen any day now — today,” said Dr. George Church, a researcher at Harvard and a leading synthetic biologist. “The pragmatic people would just engineer drug-resistant anthrax or highly transmissible influenza. Some recipes are online.”
“If they’re willing to inject themselves with hormones to make their muscles bigger, you can imagine they’d be willing to test more powerful things,” he added. “Anyone who does synthetic biology should be under surveillance, and anyone who does it without a license should be suspect.”
12
"If I don't do this stupid thing with horrible risks and implications, someone else will" is NOT a reasonable moral argument.
21
The classic science fiction treatment of this threat is Bruce Sterling's short story "Our Neural Chernobyl", first published in 1988 and included as the first story in Sterling's collection "Globalhead".
The story isn't available online, but there's a good summary in the first paragraph of the book review at "http://larsschmeink.de/?p=2242&lang=en".
In the story, gene hackers create a retrovirus that increases mammalian intelligence, which makes the jump from humans to other species, resulting in packs of intelligent coyotes that have to be "bought off" by ranchers with "slaughtered, barbecued livestock and sacks of dog treats" and in intelligent raccoons that have made most wilderness areas into "no-go zones" for humans and have a history of "kamikaze attacks by self-infected rabid raccoons".
10
Coincidentally, an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode last weekend (on the Cozi channel) was about a woman who had a drug-induced nightmare about a society where an experiment intended to wipe out rats had resulted in eradiation of all human males. (No irony seemed to be intended.) When she regained consciousness and discovered that there was indeed a scientist doing such research, she tracked him down and killed him--only to find out, as she was being led off to prison, that the scientist's son had taken up the experiments. I remember thinking it was more like a Twilight Zone than a Hitchcock. And now this....
7
And then once it gets to NYC, it results in gangs of intelligent rats that terrorize the city... intelligent, internet-savvy dogs that blackmail their human families by threatening to tell all... and of course, highly intelligent apes that... well, you've seen the movies.
4
Cool, as long as the inventors just inject themselves, who cares. Bottoms up Jeckyl.
4
Do-it-yourselfers, in general, are part and parcel of the American mythology of exceptionalism and rugged individualism, a mythology which ignores present-day realities even as it gratuitously presumes the mantle of Progress. This mythology is rooted in the Frontier experience in our national history, and it is also rooted in a strain of 19th century European Romanticism which later contributed to the rise of demagoguery and Fascism.
Two points are relevant with respect to this cultural myth. First, do-it-yourselfers often embody what is meant by the terms "screw-driver mechanics" or "hammer mechanics." What these vernacular expressions tell us is that there are innumerable individuals who assume they are capable of doing a job by simply winging it, when in fact they have no idea what they are doing.
A second and perhaps more significant point is that genetic engineering is a high-tech project, one that requires the resources of capital-intensive economic organization in addition to state-of-the-art technology. I am reminded of characters in the fiction of William Gibson -- characters who, in a post-apocalyptic setting, assemble devices from electronic scrap in a manner so as to suggest that it is no more difficult than tinkering with radios from the nineteen thirties. Such fiction requires what Coleridge called a willing suspension of disbelief.
7
I am really torn on this subject ( I suspect many people are )
On one hand, it is hard to trust governments and conglomerates with the full future of the planet and the human race, since it is more than likely that we are going to extinguish ourselves via climate change or some biological ''experiment'' , Everything they do is geared to either national security or for profit. ( or worse to weaponize )
On the other hand, there might just be someone out there that all by themselves are going to come up with cures for diseases or protection against some unknown hazard in our futures. They might not be geared for profit and will just give their find to the betterment of mankind and the world. Is it not better to have as many minds as possible working on problems ?
Torn ...
2
To @FunkyIrishman:
"... that government of the people, by the people, for the people,..." We forget that we are the government.
I guess, that's the goal -- to make us distrust our ability to govern the important affairs of our country -- like the concerns and risks discussed in this article.
When we distrust, we disengage and relinquish our power and authority; thus, making it easier for biological threats like this to become a reality.
14
Commenters make it sound like people are walking into a Walmart or Target and buying equipment for $12.99 tax. Lab equipment is expensive! Even if you buy the editing kits, you still need requisite equipment to do the work: you need pipettes, thermocyclers, tubes, tips for the pipettes, distilled water (easy enough to make at home, but time-consuming. Actually you would need even higher quality water that is free of protein and nucleic acids so that the reactions work properly and at high enough efficiencies to get enough product), ethanol (not for drinking, but for cleaning), and other things (I’m sure I am missing something since I’m doing this off the top of my head).
Anyway, it’s hard. And also, most efforts will fail- the muscle experiment failed because our cells do not take up DNA very well. Usually viral vectors are needed and even then our body will typically fight it off or it won’t be designed properly and won’t work as intended. I’m not worried about the general person creating a superbug like this- it’s more likely to occur from not finishing a course of antibiotics.
15
I expected the fear mongering media to impute evil intentions; but in the real world, bio-scientists are creating the foods of tomorrow from ingredients we rarely eat.
The last great agricultural frontier is the ocean; but current veggie offerings are barely edible. But suppose you could grow a kelp which tasted like chocolate, or arame or kombu which would mimic common salad greens, or.....
These could become highly marketable crops.
Bio-engineering shellfish to withstand a warmer and more acid ocean would provide more sustainable fisheries.
End your speculation since these 'experiments' are being conducted now.
4
A few hundred years from now people will look back at this time and refer to it as the Age Of Credulity, a time when masses of people bought the snake oil that all change is progress, that "disruption" is inherently good, that the internet can be made secure, that unintended consequences can be neutralized with an apology.
Cheap armed drones, 3-D printers making AK-47s, and who knows what's next, as our secular religion, democratized technological "progress", continues to hold sway.
We had a chance. Nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to stop and think, but we didn't. Or maybe we couldn't, that being the fundamental question which I leave to others to address.
The commercialization and subsequent nationalization of science -- phenomena respectively about 150 and 75 years old -- combined with the democratization of technology have lead us to the current situation, where gene-edited organisms can be created that might wipe out a sizeable chunk of humanity, either intentionally by those rooting for Armageddon and the Apocalypse, or unintentionally by those who believe marketing hype about no dangers, or by those whose hubris leads them to believe there are no such things as unintended consequences, no things out of their control.
15
At least it's democratized, as opposed to having those with means be the only ones to engage in biohacking.
2
Hacking is not knowing what you're doing but doing it anyways. A hacker of software would lose thousands of dollars a day were it not for the miracle of the power cycle, and safety critical work is often done on effectively air gapped machines to protect the work from their chicanery.
Our bodies aren't air gapped, so the bio hacker is a hacker not of his self but of an ecosystem. Good luck power cycling the ecosystem.
Predictably, this all started because some guy wanted to amplify his masculinity. My God.
14
Now I know what I want for my next Birthday and Christmas!
1
Time to review the defensive steps taken by Charlton Heston and Will Smith.
And just for giggles, since the so-called president is leading negotiations with Kim, maybe a quick re-read of Farnham's Freehold.
Hey, maybe someone will stumble on a way to stop e.coli.... Naw, it an all about-me-thingy.
3
How many geniis? How many bottles? Too many, and too late to get them back in their bottles.
11
I wrote to my Senator asking what federal policies were regarding "bio-hacking". No response. This hobby seemed very dangerous considering the capabilities of bad actors. The theme among the proponents of bio-hacking is the potential bounty of discoveries, the gee-whiz of optimism. I heard the same in the early 90's about the "potential of the web". The dweebs in the garage hacking for profit and common good. Now we know how that panglossian ethos worked out with the web.
5
yeah - it's been hijacked by corps and government to oppress people. Big surprise.
1
If a person needed any proof that intelligence is not a guarantee of wisdom, this article surely provides it. Sounds like we will have teenagers blowing their noses and editing the cold viruses. What next? Contracting an STD and creating a super bug?
Maybe we're going to need a ban on the purchase of the necessary lab equipment, the same way we ban precursor chemicals to stop illicit drug manufacturing.
7
"His mission at Stanford is to build a body of genetic material for public use. …it’s a noble endeavor."
This endeavor is certainly noble to the tens of thousands of individuals who have diseases triggered by certain prescription medications. Since there is a DNA test (SLCO1B1 gene) to determine increased likelihood of severe myopathy from statin drugs, we know that there is a relationship between DNA and statin damage. Those with one copy of the gene (23%) have about 450% increase, and those with two copies have 17,000% increase. About 40% of Americans over 40 are on statin drugs. Millions.
This "experiment", done on human beings, potentially provides us with a huge pool of DNA samples. After collapsing after 7 months on a statin, I had a DNA test done. My neuromuscular specialist said, "Statins, in those genetically predisposed, trigger diseases that they wouldn't have gotten for another 30 years."
Many of these diseases, while truly terrible, aren't diagnosed. I have friends who've experienced exactly what I've experienced, and we all are enduring years of progressive disability and pain, ending in early death. Our hope is that someone will find it productive to do research into the mechanisms of what the statin drug did to us.
It seems reasonable to assume that such research might lead to clues into the diseases with names (ALS, MS, many, many more) that our diseases so closely resemble. Help!
If you're in my situation, please send your story to StatinVictims.com.
6
In his prescient, April 2000 8.04 Wired Magazine article, "Why the Future Doesn't Need Us," Bill Joy, cofounder and former Chief Scientist of Sun Microsystems, wrote that "the most compelling 21st-century technologies pose a different threat than the technologies that have come before....The risk lies in the initiation of mechanisms that self-replicate beyond human control. [They] are so powerful that they can spawn whole new classes of accidents and abuses. Most dangerously, for the first time, these accidents and abuses are widely within the reach of individuals or small groups. They will not require large facilities or rare raw materials. Knowledge alone will enable the use of them [producing] a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals."
9
Walking Dead could actually happen, and it’s truly terrifying.
4
Climate change is at least as dangerous as this, and far more inevitable at this point. I'll take a pass on worrying about it.
Maybe some of these biohackers will make the crops and species that will allow us to survive the coming heat.
5
Mainers welcome a warmer, longer growing period. Our agricultural abundance has produced crops for export and more employment for growers...Bring it on; you won't hear any complaining about mild winters and long summers from us natives.
1
Much climate change has been an ongoing process since the beginning. This is far more dangerous, not a natural process at all.
4
The University of Alberta has recreated HORSEPOX? What, they couldn't find something more useful to do than create a possible bioweapon? What's wrong here?
18
Once upon a time the internet was an exotic tool that scientists used to communicate, then it became the playground of every troll and script kiddie who could download software they didn't understand from some "hacker" site. What could possibly go wrong with giving the tools of genetic engineering to the non scientific community? If you look at what the internet has become today, I think you have the answer. We were naive to think that the internet would turn into John Stuart Mill's marketplace of ideas where the best ideas would be proofed in the forge of debate. Let's not make the same mistake again.
8
This is hardly unexpected-- ever since the double helix was identified it has only been a matter of time; the genie was out of the bottle. Crispr-CAS9 and information exchange via Internet, combined with a huge stack of classical computing power/software in low cost mass produced form is the dawning of the age of proletarian genomics. The barriers to entry have declined from insurmountable walls to mere speed bumps. The tools, and ease of tool use, will only increase.
Proximate risk avoidance investment should be defensive. We can barely defend against natural pathogens now, boding ill for the near future. Cutting edge high cost research should focus on staying ahead of the low cost masses, some of which will have nefarious intent-- as is usual for humans, until the first disaster there will be scant investment.
Perhaps we should throw off our chemical bonds and upload into the crystalline quantum beauty of machine existence. A race between Kurzweil upload and a gasping fetid death in a soup of man made pathogens.
6
I see the cause for concern here, particularly due to every picture showing a blatantly obvious mechanism for a equipment accident or personal contamination to occur. But, at the same time, this is a classic risk/reward science scenario. There is a low probability these "biohackers" will create Ebola 2.0, but also a low probability they will find the cure of cancer.
I say let them innovate with limited regulations. Start tracking sales, or maybe require a "biohacking license" to purchase certain equipment (and require proper training in PPE before they give it to them). This is how all groundbreaking science was born before the rise of controlled labs at universities.
4
As a member of a University Biosafety committee I find this rather terrifying. Scientists must show that they can do these experiments safely before they are allowed to work. How is it that we are regulated but these home-grown scientists are not?
This is not going to end well.
Regulation is needed to protect us from those people who think that the worst will never happen. This is why we have rules against people running red lights and driving 100 mph on the highway.
There will always people who do stupid things, but as a society we need to protect the innocent from those with no judgement.
The field of synthetic biology is exciting, as is nuclear fusion. But we don't want people doing this in their basements or without any regulation
7
Yeah - good luck with that. You people who think that passing laws actually makes anybody safer, or can stop people from doing something that they want to do, make me laugh. How's that "drug war" working out for you?
3
What about bioethics? Tampering with the building blocks of life in a way that could wipe out mankind? Sounds like a good case for stringent regulation. You can’t legally build a meth lab. Why would we allow uneducated people mess around with potentially catastrophic virus and bacteria?
8
Reminds me of James Rollins' "The Sixth Extinction" about a genetic researcher and extreme environmentalist who uses a "shell" developed by a colleague as the intended dispersal vehicle for his gene that will essentially render humans back to the intelligence level of a chimpanzee or gorilla in order to prevent further depredation on our environment.
2
lol, I have nothing to fear. My childhood did not include vaccinations and my immune system can handle just about anything because of it.
Take a look at your neighbor's garage next time they open the door and ask yourself if they could make anything in there. For that matter, talk to your neighbor and ask them if they could even make a cake much less some new virus.
I have one neighbor who works in a lab in a hospital but the poor guy does not even know how to make hash oil using a curling iron. He is not much of a threat:)
4
Today in this news digest I read about documentation of lead in the ice over three millennia tracked Roman high economic output, correlating it with the apex of their artistic and economic performance. It seems not incredible that three millennia from now archeologists may track AI and genetic tinkering with the apex of Western European/North American artistic and economic performance. The analogy is yet more ironic because lead's biologic significance is that in almost any concentration of measurability in human organisms, it degrades performance.
3
I have a research lab at a University, and we do some of this. But it is quite a lot harder than this article implies--no-one without training in the area is going to be doing this in their garage anytime soon. But still, it is within reach of any country, or wealthy, well-motivated individuals.
It is not clear how much surveillance of this kind of activity already exists. The oligonucleotides for gene synthesis have to be ordered from one of a fairly small number of highly expert suppliers, and it would not be hard for these suppliers to keep track of what is being ordered and made, if they or Homeland Security so wished.
9
What would the FBI noticed someone were tracking down designs and materials to build a nuclear bomb, even if it were impossible that he would succeed. Oh wait, we know. It has happened. He would be stopped.
The danger may be remote, for now, but could have far worse impact than a bomb that could "merely" wipe out a city. If we don't have adequate laws on the books to mandate protocols for DNA editing, we need them.
4
Possibly one of the most scary articles I've read in the past five years or so.
And also a possible hint at how the origin of the Zombie virus outbreak in the "Walking Dead" series could finally be revealed in one of the next series.
7
The article is more than a little disingenuous. The principal 'biothreats' do not come from underground experimenters, but from commercial agribusiness enterprises that (1) use antibiotics in animal feed as a matter of course, generating drug-resistant pathogens, and (2) protein monoculture factory farms for chicken and hog that have reduced genetic diversity and create conditions for pandemic viral infection. See, for example 'Big Farms make Big Flu' by Dr. Robert G. Wallace (disclosure: a relative)
https://www.amazon.com/Big-Farms-Make-Flu-Agribusiness/dp/1583675892
This article is little more than a rearrangement of deck chairs on a Titanic. The forthcoming argibusiness pandemic(s) will crop something like 2 percent of the US population each time, some six million of us at a hit, and those who caused and enabled them will be above prosecution.
37
The question is often asked: "Why are there no signs of any other advanced civilizations in the universe?" Maybe we're about to find out. Unregulated and reckless advances in genetic engineering (and on a different topic; artificial intelligence) may prove to be more dangerous than nuclear proliferation.
24
There is always the possibility that one of these maverick scientists will develope something highly beneficial to humanity. But, that is no reason not to regulate the sale of equipment and materials and to require licenses for those who want to biohack . The licenses would not necessarily need to involve excessively onerous requirements or significant expense and the regulation of sale of materials and equipment could function simply as a baseline control much like regulations on alcohol and marijuana . The risk of mistake ( do the names Mary Shelley and Frankenstein ring any bells?) or bad intent is too great here not to license and to impose significant penalties for failure to get a license. Luckily, there is no purported second amendment right to biohack
k!
8
Yes, we must regulate, must do the best we can, but if we want to be honest with ourselves, the horse is already out of the barn. It really is too late to lock the door. A few hundred years from now people will look back at this time and refer to it as the Age Of Credulity, a time when masses of people bought the snake oil that all change is progress, that "disruption" is inherently good, that the internet can be made secure, that unintended consequences can be neutralized with an apology.
We had a chance. Nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to stop and think, but we didn't. Or maybe couldn't, that being the fundamental question.
The commercialization and subsequent nationalization of science, a phenomenon of just the past hundred years, combined with the democratization of technology have lead us to the current situation, where gene-edited organisms can be created that wipe out a sizeable chunk of humanity, either intentionally by those rooting for Armageddon and the Apocalypse, or by accident by those who believe corporate marketing hype about no dangers, or by those with the hubris to believe there are no such things as unintended consequences, that they can control everything.
Cheap armed drones, 3-D printers making AK-47s, and who knows what's next, while unfettered, democratized technological "progress" continues as our secular religion.
10
Please look up the definition of "Luddite."
2
Not sure how all this works, but if one could create a weapon, does not mean one could arm oneself with it? Does it fall under the 2nd amendment? Is this another thing to fear?
5
According to the gun fetishists, the Second Amendment gives Americans the unlimited right to own any weapon we please. So to answer your question; maybe.
1
Yes, it is something to worry about & Arrogant just isn't a strong enough word for this brand of stupid
(Mrs. Gump - "Stupid is as Stupid does")
1
Why is this story down-the-page? It's scarier even than waking up and remembering that Donald Trump is president of the United States!
54
No. Trump is much scarier and real.
3
We have all been led to believe....... what?
Perhaps it is too late to tell the truth that this is the only life any of us will ever have and the consequence of messing around with it as we have for the last several millennia has to be understood or it will be lights out for all of us.
The likelihood is most of us at an advanced age will bail out naturally, but our kids and theirs will suffer the consequence of the lies we keep telling ourselves. Either accept the fact we are all swimming in the same bowl of soup or good night nurse.
The lies and pretense of our arrogant, shortsighted and ignorant male leadership like all of the world in which shortsighted men rule will bring all of us down.
The lies are finally catching up.
It ain't doomsday, it is reality.
13
Isn't this article itself contributing to the spread of information that may facilitate/encourage more DIY efforts?
12
The trouble with free access to information is users without the proper perspective and sense of responsibility of when to use it, or not.
3
Security through obscurity is not security at all.
This article isn't news to anyone who wants to act on this technology. It's not even news to me, and I know nothing about genetic hacking.
2
“Even I would tell you, the level of DNA synthesis regulation, it simply isn’t good enough,” Mr. Gandall said. “These regulations aren’t going to work when everything is decentralized — when everybody has a DNA synthesizer on their smartphone.”
As someone who can't even operate a smartphone, I'm impressed.
As someone 'of a certain age' likely to be gone before the threat posed by the tech and bio-tech explosion most closely 'anticipates' the destruction of our species and our planet ... I am in just this one 'respect' happy to be 'old.'
As someone who, nonetheless and fairly likely, has more than a few years left, I wonder if a trump-specific virus, or, better yet, a trump-pence- specific virus, or, most preferred, a republican-and-republican-leaning-voter virus might be 'concocted.' (In the very best of my shrinking times, I am hoping, and shall continue to hope, until I'm satisfied or gone, that all of those virii are in development and on the precipice of synthesized fruition.)
3
It already exists: voting. Too many people were immune to it last election; let's see if more succumb this time.
11
I guess I can see why they don't let the entire public have access to Ebola." Ya think?
The fact that curious amateurs and educated enthusiasts want to tinker with DNA doesn't mran that they should be allowed to undulge their passion without thoughtful and stringent regulation.
20
Powerful tools like A.I. and gene editing increase the power of those who control them.
In the big picture, death by runaway garage experiment is just as unlikely as death by terrorist attack or getting hit by lightning. These are terrible ways to die! We should work to reduce the risks ... just don't get completely distracted from the larger, darker dangers rampant in the world.
If genome editing winds up killing us all, there will be profit motive up and down that double-edged helix.
5
We have "leadership" that dismisses and denigrates science, and does not "believe" in regulation .
We have a do-nothing, "representative" Congress that is beholden only to NRA, Sheldon Adelson, and the Kochs.
We also have a minority but very vocal far right voting block, very low on information but high on "god the almighty white father will take care of us."
And now we have anybody with a microscope playing Frankenstein in his garage.
What could possibly go wrong.
8
Check out “12 technologies that scared the world senseless” to realize fear sells especially in newspapers and on tv.
2
Consider that the requirement for having tamper proof, double seals on medications and foods arose from the poisoning/murder involving Tylenol in 1982...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders
but somehow our government cannot take action here in something that takes only a speck of imagination to foresee how catastrophic this will be?
And phooey on the Universty of Alberta researchers and especially the editors of PLOS to publish their paper. Cleary they knew they were doing something ethically corrupt even as they protest ridiculously and pathetically that their notifications did not seem to raise a response. Idiots! That is what a conscience is for. That is why you studied research ethics in college-- heck, you probably have to teach a course in that. I'm all about creativity and imagination and seeking new knowledge but clearly this is the expression of the inevitable dark side.
Better enjoy today-- the freedom of going to the grocery store for food, or swimming in a swimming pool, or enjoying a concert or sporting event or even just sharing a handshake or helping a stranger in distress-- because one of these dopes is going to make that just a quaint memory.
And finally-- I love the picture in the article of the "scientist" holding up his I phone while wearing gloves to take a picture of something growing in a dish. Want to bet a dollar that later on he goes to a bar and texts and holds the phone up to his ear to take a call? Idiot.
16
"it would be very difficult for amateur biologists of any stripe to design a killer virus on their own"
It would also be very difficult to hijack and fly multiple airplanes. Or to build a bomb that will take out an entire federal building. Yet both have been done. It would require some serious knowledge and ability; but Kaczynski had knowledge and ability. It would require a bit of money; but Paddock had some money.
This has always been the most serious of future terrorist risks; and I suspect it will always will be. Until it happens.
18
This "do-it-yourself" trend in current American culture (and politics, "news", etc) is disturbing and alarming. There is a reason we have (or had until conservatives dismantled them) certain protocols, regulations, and laws in place to protect society and the environment from the collective menace of humanity.
We should not equate an entrepreneurial spirit, or good old American gumption, with amateur adventurism in areas that have potentially devastating consequences. Our society is so stupid that we must display disclaimers "do not attempt this at home" on YouTube videos of idiots doing idiotic things for their tiny slice of fame and money. So, yeah. Gene editing is not a do-at-home endeavor.
PS: note the cover photo of a man holding a petri dish with gloved hands and his cell phone in the other. Seriously? Scary.
16
Fifty, maybe a hundred, years from now people will look back at this time and refer to it as the Age Of Credulity, a time when masses of people bought the snake oil that all change is progress, that "disruption" is inherently good, that the internet can be made secure, that unintended consequences can be neutralized with an apology.
We had a chance. Nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to stop and think, but we didn't. Or maybe couldn't, that being the fundamental question. The commercialization and nationalization of science combined with the democratization of technology leads us to the current situation, where gene edited organisms can be created that wipe out a sizeable chunk of humanity, either intentionally by those rooting for Armageddon and the Apocalypse, or by accident by those who believe marketing hype about no dangers, or by those who believe there are no such things as unintended consequences.
Cheap armed drones, 3-D printers making AK-47s, and who knows what's next as unfettered, democratized technological "progress" continues as our secular religion.
6
I agree with everything you say, but I cannot imagine a society that suppressed all these things as a place I would want to live. That doesn't solve the problem, I know. I'm not sure you have a solution, either, other than a police state.
2
Ss, you are right, I do not have a "solution." However, my response to the total-gloom-and-doom viewpoint is to just note that a calamity could wipe out three billion people, and there would still be more people left than were on the planet in 1900, likely more than existed in the entire history of humanity before 1900.
1
Talk about a "reset"!
It’s amazing how people love to imagine imminent disaster. Remember Laurie Garrett’s The Coming Plague? That was published in 1994. Best seller. But the plague never happened. Then there was the Ebola outbreak in Zaire, when people were confidently saying it’s not a matter of if but when Ebola arrives here and wipes us all out. Never happened. So now DIY molecular bio-hacking is going to wipe us all out, too. The possibility is equally real that some biohacker will create something useful and good, a cure for some disease, for example. People need to calm down just a bit. Regulation would drive underground those who would use this technology to do harm. I am more worried about self-driving cars than this stuff.
4
Eddie, I doubt that it is equally likely that something useful versus something dangerous would be found, but then I don't have access to all the information you do that allowed you to say what you did. Given the tone of your comments, I'm sure you know what is really going on. The term black swan event comes to mind.
4
This isn't an either/or situation, and claiming we should "calm down" is simplistic. Something good could be created, and something bad created. The trouble with the "bad" is that is could be an entirely new, deadly, and very contagious pathogen. This is actually possible to create right now. But to do it now would take a fair amount of money, knowledge, and team work. But given the rapid evolution of techniques, ability, and technology, it is all getting cheaper and easier. Pathogens and outbreaks of currently known diseases (such as if there were a new outbreak of the 1918 flu) are conceivably controlled using known techniques. An entirely new pathogen might require new and unknown techniques. Finally, nasty infectious diseases spread; terrorist bombs, even very deadly ones, are site-specific.
2
Nasty infectious disease spread, true enough. But sometimes they are also contained if identified early and cordons sanitaires are erected around the outbreak zone, as indeed happened in the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. The fact that a pathogen is new and nasty does not mean that anything other than known and proven techniques would be necessary to contain it.
I was working as a molecular biologist when the DNA sequence for smallpox was published and the complete sequence was downloadable. Later the sequence information was scrubbed from the public database, but many digital copies were downloaded to thousands of hard drives. I destroyed the hard drive from my old computer that had a copy on it, but copies certainly still exist. Many recently published articles detail how to reassemble a viable virus from synthesized DNA and new techniques have made the task relatively easy. I think that now with a hundred thousand dollars of used equipment off of ebay a skilled person could do it in a garage. It certainly is within the capabilities of an apocalyptic group. Remember Aum Shinrikyo's attacks and shudder. We need to outlaw the resale of equipment that can be used for bioterrorism.
60
Obviously more, and stricter, regulation is needed.
The risk from accidental or intentional harm is obvious.
18
When recombinant engineering was first invented, in the 1970s, scientists recognized that the dangers inherent in the technique would lead to strong regulations. Recognizing that it would be better if the community prepared its own regulations, there was a conference at Asilomar in 1975. The resulting work has guided the ethics and safety of recombinant technology for all those who receive government funding for their work. But there is a big gap in regulatory overview now that recombinant engineering is so inexpensive. We need to get out in front of this before a disaster happens.
34
A part of our present economic and political environment that is usually malign may be useful here. Typically, corporate economic and political power is exercised to prevent or inhibit regulation that might limit profits. In. This case, though, it would be in the interest of large corporate entities to curb wildcat gene-editing activities. Finding ways to do so would be difficult, subject to abuse, and could never meet 100% success, but at least it would be nice to have needed government action and corporate power aligned against what is surely an existential threat, if not immediately, in the near future.
Not covered in this article is the problem that even what we may accomplish domestically in the U.S. will not necessarily have much of an effect on the rest of the world.
2
This article is completely ridiculous. I work at a medical research institute in New York City - the home of CRISPR-Cas9 - and I can tell you, no one is doing gene editing in their basements or garages. It takes a seriously equipped (and seriously funded) research lab to do. Yes, gene editing lights one's sci-fi imagination on fire - but alas, we are not quite at "citizen-scientists doing precise DNA editing in their own homes". But at least this article didn't have any worn out anti-semitic tropes and pro-Palestinian propaganda, so kudos to the NYT for something.
28
Oh contraire. Compared to the "do it yourself," clime I inhabited in the 80's and 90's (molecular and cell biology) virtually everything can be ordered for a price; enzymes, sequencing and other steps can be either purchased or outsourced. Cell culture is admittedly difficult but not impossible. And then their is the periodic sale of "old" lab equipment at Universities and VA's around the country. You can purchase my "Molecular Biology for Dummies," on Amazon. Available now only in Arabic and Farsi.
38
So we're to assume that the pointy heads at your "seriously-equipped research lab" will never produce something unintended and dangerous using gene-editing technology. Sir, you have far more faith in humanity and the universal prevalence of good luck than I do.
12
As a research scientist and geneticist, I completely agree with you. This article is nothing but fearmongering. I've already had concerned family members forward it to me because they wanted a scientist's input. This is incredibly disapppointing, especially coming from the NYT.
13
A elected government dominated by a president and others whose denial of scientific evidence on any number of subjects has little or no chance to stop these shade tree mechanics from creating whatever.
9
Reminded me that Margaret Atwood got there first. She missed the DIY part.
"Oryx and Crake"
15
Evolution is about to kick into overdrive, with Homo sapiens an "unforeseen" mutating factor. I have little doubt there are new monsters being created as we speak. One tiny accident may have enormous consequences. I'm more worried about new forms of organic life than I ever was about AI.
A new age of bio-mechanical engineering will soon wed critters and machines in ways we cannot imagine. I recommend the book "Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow" if you need a primer.
by Yuval Noah Harari
7
Thank you for the recommendation; the book is now on my shortlist to read.
4
This is a thing? Why not; what could possibly go wrong?
9
I'm 54 years old. The way things are in this world now ... I hope my death is a "normal" one, rather than death by terrorist act, mass shooter, nuclear war or just plain war, climate-change-related disaster, extreme poverty in old age, or now smallpox or other unknown pandemic that originates from some teenager's bedroom.
81
I am 60 years old and also live in Seattle. There is greater chance that Mt. Rainier will blow up before the high school kids in my neighborhood figure out how to do simple science let alone create a deadly virus.
5
PH, thankfully there is no such thing as abnormal death however indulging such nonsensical concerns could very well lead one to living something of an abnormal life - not that there's really anything wrong with that.
1
Biohacking is far more scary than cyberhacking or literally any other current frightfest. Regulations are needed to help control this, but Congress is too busy dithering ("dithering" - ha!) away their time, playing stupid political games to tear down our national security teams in the name of Trump preservation.
This is no joke. It won't be long before some nefarious group creates waves of homegrown pandemics for which there are no cures. The Black Plague will be a picnic by comparison.
Having the ability to modify the human genome by hand can have great value. But with that comes terrifying risks. Uncontrolled genome editing is the most serious threat to humanity possible. It isn't nuclear Armageddon. It isn't autocracy and the dissipation of liberal democracy. It is this.
48
What a frightening story. Given the people involved and the often reckless nature of their endeavors, it seems that it would be more likely that accidental and/or unintentional creations pose the biggest risk, leading to exposure to the public of unimaginable threats for which we will be unprepared. If people are stupid enough to inject themselves with their own home brewed "improvements", frankly I have less than zero sympathy for them when it turns out badly - but such actions, particularly in creation or recreation of deadly viruses, like smallpox, are a grave public threat.
Sadly, here and else where in the world, it may take an actual tragedy before anything actually gets done about it.
17
If you assemble human beings into a large enough group, one thing that is certain is that someone, somewhere, will come up with the absolute stupidest possible thing to do in a given set of circumstances, and then do it.
Maybe they'll say "Hold my beer." before they do it, or maybe they'll say "Oops," but they'll do it.
So, yeah, hundreds, soon to be hundreds of thousands, of independent people assembling DNA - What could possibly go wrong?
When is the next Elon musk rocket leaving for Jupiter, anyway, 'cause I think I need to be on it.
88
Thank you for this article. I wish you had given a little less detail - you've certainly made it easy for anyone with dark fascinations to take the first steps. But it is good that you highlight the concerns.
Ever since living a few feet from a lab at Harvard in 70s where early DNA research was going on, I've worried about the arrival of the day when the tools for creating Armegeddon reach the streets. I am sorry to know it is more or less here.
I hope all readers took in your last paragraph. Currently the conventional understandings of what dangers our security are hopelessly out of date. We need to challenge those who spend our tax money for national security and ask why they are not updating their awareness of threats.
As the powers of death move increasingly into the hands of individuals, old notions of how to protect ourselves will have to change. No nation state, no matter how powerful, will be able to prevent reclusive individuals from developing and releasing horrific weapons.
In addition to limiting and controlling this technology, we will have to do more to reduce the causes of alienation and hatred that drive people to do terrible things. Whenever we squelch protest or drive people away with ruthless force, we feed dynamics of desperation and hatred that in the end will come back to haunt us.
There's always a next generation. These tools and worse will be within their reach. Overwhelming force is no longer sufficient to protect us.
70
This is the first article I've seen from a major news organization that has addressed this worrisome subject. I have a Ph.D. in biology and I know how easy it is to create novel DNA in a lab. Pretty easy with the right knowledge, tools, material, and chemicals; just follow the recipe. As the article shows, high school kids can do it.
"Garage biohacking" began many years ago, and I immediately saw the potential for serious harm. By not regulating access to the tools and materials needed to build a deadly virus, it's just a matter of time before, either by accident or design, someone releases a bio-engineered strain that kills or injures hordes of people. To not regulate this is crazy.
165
I agree. But can regulation be effective??
This is a worrisome situation. Perhaps this is why we don't see aliens - they've all killed themselves off.
2
reply to Me: This is not the time to be philosophical about the power of regulation-- better to do as much as possible rather than worry/dither it won't be perfect. Want your nurse and surgeon to give up hand washing becasue it is not 100% effective?
This is going to make regulation of nuclear materials look like an elementary school science fair project.
......................
I can't help but wonder about what people who refuse to get immunized for whooping cough or flu will say?
24
Citizen X, yes we must regulate, must do all we can, but if we want to be honest with ourselves, the horse is already out of the barn. It really is too late to lock the door. Fifty, maybe a hundred, years from now people will look back at this time and refer to it as the Age Of Credulity, a time when masses of people bought the snake oil that all change is progress, that "disruption" is inherently good, that the internet can be made secure, that unintended consequences can be neutralized with an apology.
We had a chance. Nuclear weapons gave us the opportunity to stop and think, but we didn't. Or maybe couldn't, that being the fundamental question.
The commercialization and nationalization of science combined with the democratization of technology leads us to the current situation, where gene edited organisms can be created that wipe out a sizeable chunk of humanity, either intentionally by those rooting for Armageddon and the Apocalypse, or by accident by those who believe corporate marketing hype about no dangers, or by those with the hubris to believe there are no such things as unintended consequences, that they can control everything.
Cheap armed drones, 3-D printers making AK-47s, and who knows what's next, while unfettered, democratized technological "progress" continues as our secular religion.
10
The implications of this article are simply terrifying. Home brew genetic engineering needs to be heavily regulated and vigorously monitored. The potential for purposeful or accidental harm is high. I had never heard of Genspace but its proximity to my apartment gives me shivers. Who knows what they could accidentally unleash?
35
Technology always carries risks. When we taught anyone to code, we got a bunch of script kiddies and folks who take over your computer for ransomware payments.
We love our smartphones for many purposes. But some people use them for anatomy pics.
But that doesn't mean that we should be afraid of every other use of computers and phones by folks in their spare bedrooms. I'm more scared of your unvaccinated kid than what a DIY yogurt creator is going to do.
3