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How likely is it than storing arbitrary data in a bacteria's DNA would allow it to create something dangerous for humans?
by alex_duf 9y ago
How likely is it than storing arbitrary data in a bacteria's DNA would allow it to create something dangerous for humans?
- thriftwy 9y agoApproximately like the chance that DNA sequence of a virus, when executed as shell code, will infect your machine.
- piyh 9y agoBuy your subscription to Norton Anti-virus 2030 today!
- unit91 9y agoIf not for yourself, do it for the children.
- alex_duf 9y agoThe reason I ask is that it seems subsequences of DNA are enough to generate proteins, or other molecules. (am I right? if not anyone who knows biology please correct me) It doesn't have to be the whole code that's dangerous, what about a section of it? That still makes it very improbable, but orders of magnitude more than the whole sequence.
- waserwill 9y agoThe encoding used by these sorts of projects avoids 'ATG' (start site), and possibly the Shine-Dalgarno Sequence (where ribosomes attach), if they do it right. The bacterial DNA can mutate, but the likelihood of that mutation creating a viable protein, let alone a dangerous one, is very low. Honestly, since these stored data aren't coding, the chances of them surviving for long, even in a population of bacteria, is low. Bacteria tend to favor smaller genomes, with higher percentage of coding DNA.