The US National Academy of Sciences, commissioned by the Department of Defense, has published a report that reveals the dangers of military applications of modern biotechnology. According to experts, advances in synthetic biology could lead to the emergence of artificial viruses that can cause a pandemic. This is reported by Science Alert.
According to microbiologist Michael Imperiale of the University of Michigan, synthetic biology is not a threat by itself, but specific developments may pose a threat. For example, a study by Canadian scientists who resurrected an extinct horsepox virus for later study caused alarm among specialists who said that humanity has become more vulnerable to this type of disease.
The genetic codes of many mammalian viruses are freely available, and infections can be recreated by experienced researchers in any laboratory equipped for this. Cultivated viruses and bacteria can be even more dangerous than their natural counterparts, as scientists often deliberately increase their drug and vaccine resistance, virulence and toxicity. With the development of technologies such as the CRISPR / Cas system, the risk of the spread of pathogenic infections increases even more, experts write.
At the same time, the authors of the report concluded that the appearance of completely new types of infections is unlikely (for example, especially lethal strains of influenza), since even small genetic changes in viruses can lead to the loss of their pathogenic properties. More plausible is an increase in an already existing threat.
Some researchers note that the very interest of the US Department of Defense in such an examination is a potential danger, since the department could initiate a new biological weapons race.
The CRISPR / Cas system is used to change the nucleotide sequence of DNA. Cas is a protein that cuts a double strand at a specific site in a gene. This site defines guide RNA (sgRNA), which binds to a specific recognition site according to the principle of complementarity. The various sgRNAs are encoded by spacers - stretches of DNA within CRISPR - a group of specific repetitive nucleotide sequences.