1. The biosecurity benefits of genetic engineering attribution
- Author
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Gregory D. Koblentz, Jacob L. Jordan, Thomas V. Inglesby, Cassidy Nelson, Stephen P. Luby, Piers Millett, Ethan C. Alley, Gerald L. Epstein, Gregory Lewis, Kevin M. Esvelt, Michael Montague, David A. Relman, Allan Dafoe, Jade Leung, Elizabeth Cameron, Claire Marie Filone, George M. Church, and Rebecca Katz
- Subjects
Forensic Genetics ,0301 basic medicine ,Science ,Biosecurity ,0211 other engineering and technologies ,Datasets as Topic ,General Physics and Astronomy ,02 engineering and technology ,Communicable Diseases ,Security Measures ,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology ,03 medical and health sciences ,Synthetic biology ,Animals ,Humans ,Organism ,021110 strategic, defence & security studies ,Multidisciplinary ,Organisms, Genetically Modified ,Virulence ,Technological change ,DNA ,General Chemistry ,Bioterrorism ,Genetically modified organism ,Policy ,030104 developmental biology ,Harm ,Risk analysis (engineering) ,Communicable disease transmission ,Communicable Disease Control ,Perspective ,Genetic Engineering ,Attribution ,Biotechnology - Abstract
Biology can be misused, and the risk of this causing widespread harm increases in step with the rapid march of technological progress. A key security challenge involves attribution: determining, in the wake of a human-caused biological event, who was responsible. Recent scientific developments have demonstrated a capability for detecting whether an organism involved in such an event has been genetically modified and, if modified, to infer from its genetic sequence its likely lab of origin. We believe this technique could be developed into powerful forensic tools to aid the attribution of outbreaks caused by genetically engineered pathogens, and thus protect against the potential misuse of synthetic biology., A key security challenge with biosecurity threats is determining the responsible actor. In this Perspective, the authors review recent developments in using genetic sequence to assign a lab-of-origin and the potential protection it provides against misuse of synthetic biology.
- Published
- 2020
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