Gene Future: The Promise and Perils of the New Biology
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Contents:
In , the Bush administration scuttled a negotiation over the previous six and a half years aimed at creating a protocol for improved verification and transparency. President Obama has not changed this position. Clinton told the review conference "it is not possible, in our opinion, to create a verification regime that will achieve" the goal of bolstering confidence that all nations are complying with the treaty. Instead, she called for some "other steps" such as revising the annual reporting system in which countries are supposed to be transparent about potentially dangerous biological activities.
Judging by some preliminary reports from those who attended, the review conference made little or no progress in strengthening the treaty. As a result, the conference outcome was to once again kick the can down the road to future meetings. Consider this: a three-person staff, known as the "Implementation Support Unit," is assigned to work on treaty issues in between the review conferences. A proposal to expand the staff to five people failed to gain support in Geneva. In contrast, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons , which oversees the chemical weapons treaty, has a staff of about people.
That pact contains tough verification provisions.
How dysfunctional is the biological weapons treaty? There is a reporting system, created in Each year, nations are supposed to submit a report known as a Confidence Building Measure detailing research, disease outbreaks, legislation and past activities, among other things. In the last year, fewer than 40 percent of signatories to the treaty even bothered to submit the forms. At the review conference, there was renewed discussion about focusing on the rapid changes in life sciences. Sounds good. But there seems to be little willpower, either in the United States or elsewhere, to do anything about the fact that the biological weapons convention is a toothless tiger.
The second recent event was caused by a laboratory experiment. Up until now, the virus has been quite lethal in humans, with a fatality rate of about 60 percent in confirmed cases, but it has not been very transmissible among people. The researchers under Fouchier introduced a number of mutations into the virus that could make it highly transmissible through the air, and they demonstrated this in ferrets, which are considered a good stand-in model for humans in testing influenza strains.
A genomics pioneer's sequencing machine comes to market. Biotechnology's advance could give malefactors the ability to manipulate life processes -- and even affect human behavior. This perceptive author even-handedly assesses the controversies surrounding the perils that may await us as molecular science m Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. They did so by introducing the bio-bricks concept, just like actual bricks join together to make a building. When researchers find a promising genetic direction, they can alter the organism's DNA to speed up the process.
The experiment was carried out in a special, high-security laboratory, but it raised a terrifying prospect — if the modified strain got out, or was created somehow by a person with malevolent intent, it could lead to a devastating pandemic. Furthermore, the finding will help in the timely development of vaccinations and medication. The research raised the question of whether the results should be published. Another study along similar lines was also performed by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and University of Tokyo.
Understandably, this is a thorny problem. Scientists chafe at restrictions which could stifle discovery and innovation, potentially hurting society more than helping it. The results of the Fouchier research could be valuable to those combatting influenza, a virus that mutates rapidly and can pose a real threat to populations. Some experts suggested that it be distributed on a need-to-know basis.
The secrecy is worrisome, but it might also be prudent in this case. Similar worries were touched upon last year by a U. More regulation is not necessary at this time, the panel said, but synthetic biology should be watched closely. Separately, efforts are being made in the United States to improve the monitoring of biological research by scientists, companies and government.
Yet much of it remains voluntary. What happens if a real rogue actor comes along and breezes right past the voluntary roadblocks?
At the same time, it is impossible to put this remarkable and fast-moving science under lock and key. These are not nuclear warheads. Biological research can be carried out in small laboratories the size of a garage and agents carried in a test tube that fits in a shirt pocket.
We need to encourage the science, without forsaking security. It will require new thinking. Trending Now Sponsored Links by Taboola. Sign up for free access to 1 article per month and weekly email updates from expert policy analysts.
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The new biology calls all in doubt
To get access to this special FP Premium benefit, upgrade your subscription by clicking the button below. Thank you for being an FP reader. There is real cause for concern here—but not for immediate alarm. For such weaponisation would, like the rest of cutting-edge synthetic biology, take highly skilled teams with significant resources. And armies already have lots of ways to flatten cities and kill people in large numbers. When it comes to mass destruction, a disease is a poor substitute for a nuke.
Maintained and nurtured, that culture should serve as a powerful immune system against rogue elements. The earliest biological transformation—domestication—produced what was hitherto the biggest change in how humans lived their lives. Haphazardly, then purposefully, humans bred cereals to be more bountiful, livestock to be more docile, dogs more obedient and cats more companionable the last a partial success, at best.
This allowed new densities of settlement and new forms of social organisation: the market, the city, the state.
Humans domesticated themselves as well as their crops and animals, creating space for the drudgery of subsistence agriculture and oppressive political hierarchies. In future, they may extend further; what should one make of people with the upper-body strength of gorillas, or minds impervious to sorrow? How humans may choose to change themselves biologically is hard to say; that some choices will be controversial is not.
Which leads to the main way in which this transformation differs from the three that came before. Their significance was discovered only in retrospect. This time, there will be foresight. It will not be perfect: there will certainly be unanticipated effects. But synthetic biology will be driven by the pursuit of goals, both anticipated and desired. It will challenge the human capacity for wisdom and foresight.
The Promises and Perils of Synthetic Biology
It might defeat it. But carefully nurtured, it might also help expand it.
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