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This might just be fear-mongering, but what is the potential that someone uses some take home CRISPR kit and creates a super virus? Considering the existence of

This might just be fear-mongering, but what is the potential that someone uses some take home CRISPR kit and creates a super virus? Considering the existence of psychopaths in the human population, this sort of technology seems like something that should be kept under tight wraps.

entee 8y ago
Very, very hard. The equipment to do this isn't trivial but not complicated and largely available in biohacker spaces or on ebay even. That assumes you know how to make a super virus though, that's very very hard, we don't really know. If you wanted to recreate an existing virus you could, but DNA synthesis companies watch for those sequences so you'd likely be reported to the FBI for trying. EDIT: I should clarify, this is for human-infectious viruses. Human viruses are hard to grow because they require human cells or higher-organism cells to reproduce. That sort of tissue culture is very hard to do. Doing the mutation screening etc. is also quite hard to do in those viruses. CRISPR helps a bit, but there's a whole lot else that's still quite technically and biologically hard.
naasking 8y ago
Most mutations are dead ends. Consider CRISPR to be an affordable scanning tunneling microscope-like device that you can use to move atoms around fairly easily. Now consider how hard it would be to take an x86 CPU and add a new instruction or change some existing instructions using that device. Most changes you make simply won't produce a functional CPU. You could do it entirely by accident, but it's very unlikely.
greeneggs 8y ago
They don't have to make a super virus, smallpox would be bad enough. I recommend this article: "As D.I.Y. Gene Editing Gains Popularity, ‘Someone Is Going to Get Hurt’", By Emily Baumgaertner (May 14, 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-editing-virus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-e...
Gatsky 8y ago
It is not impossible that a technically proficient Unabomber style individual could produce a pandemic capable virus. It would just be extremely expensive and take a very, very long time. The other problem is keeping it secret. The chance of making a global catastrophe virus without any population testing and iteration is currently extremely, extremely small. It has now become quite easy to sequence DNA, so if a few people got seriously sick from a weird virus (perhaps a failed test version), the CDC or whoever would be able to sequence the viral genome whereupon it would probably be quite obvious that someone was making a designer virus. The final point to make is that the kind of rationality, dedication, dilligence and technical skill required to engineer viruses doesn’t overlap much with the desire to destroy humanity.

entee 8y ago

Very, very hard. The equipment to do this isn't trivial but not complicated and largely available in biohacker spaces or on ebay even. That assumes you know how to make a super virus though, that's very very hard, we don't really know. If you wanted to recreate an existing virus you could, but DNA synthesis companies watch for those sequences so you'd likely be reported to the FBI for trying. EDIT: I should clarify, this is for human-infectious viruses. Human viruses are hard to grow because they require human cells or higher-organism cells to reproduce. That sort of tissue culture is very hard to do. Doing the mutation screening etc. is also quite hard to do in those viruses. CRISPR helps a bit, but there's a whole lot else that's still quite technically and biologically hard.

naasking 8y ago

Most mutations are dead ends. Consider CRISPR to be an affordable scanning tunneling microscope-like device that you can use to move atoms around fairly easily. Now consider how hard it would be to take an x86 CPU and add a new instruction or change some existing instructions using that device. Most changes you make simply won't produce a functional CPU. You could do it entirely by accident, but it's very unlikely.

greeneggs 8y ago

They don't have to make a super virus, smallpox would be bad enough. I recommend this article: "As D.I.Y. Gene Editing Gains Popularity, ‘Someone Is Going to Get Hurt’", By Emily Baumgaertner (May 14, 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-editing-virus.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/14/science/biohackers-gene-e...

Gatsky 8y ago

It is not impossible that a technically proficient Unabomber style individual could produce a pandemic capable virus. It would just be extremely expensive and take a very, very long time. The other problem is keeping it secret. The chance of making a global catastrophe virus without any population testing and iteration is currently extremely, extremely small. It has now become quite easy to sequence DNA, so if a few people got seriously sick from a weird virus (perhaps a failed test version), the CDC or whoever would be able to sequence the viral genome whereupon it would probably be quite obvious that someone was making a designer virus. The final point to make is that the kind of rationality, dedication, dilligence and technical skill required to engineer viruses doesn’t overlap much with the desire to destroy humanity.