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BULLETIN OF THE ATOMIC SCIENTISTS
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2007
embers of the
synthetic biol-ogy communitymet this past Julyin Zurich, Swit-zerland. Synthetic Biology 3.0, as theconference was called, celebrated thediscipline’s continued vigor, alongwith Europe’s entry into what hadbeen a largely U.S. subject.Prominent on the conference agendawere 10 talks devoted to public policy,four of which involved biosecurity,and an entire session devoted to eth-ics. Speakers agreed that the field’ssocial and ethical consequences wouldbe as far-reaching as the science. In-deed, most scientists agree that syn-thetic biology is (or at least could be)something new under the sun. Tenyears ago, genetic engineers had tocut and paste DNA from existing or-ganisms to make new drugs such ashuman growth hormone or syntheticinsulin. Today, scientists and engineerscan create DNA from scratch.The challenge for synthetic biolo-gists is to exploit this power not just tomimic nature’s designs but also to cre-ate new ones. So far, most of the resultsare proof of principle—organisms thatoscillate with clock-like regularity orgenerate odors. But synthetic biologyis developing rapidly. Industrial-scaleprograms for building organisms thatsecrete precursors for anti-malarialdrugs and turn sunlight into energyare under way. Even more ambitiousplans—for example, organisms thathunt down and attack cancer cells—areon the horizon.Inevitably, there is a dark side tosuch technological developments. Justas personal computers brought com-puting power to the masses, syntheticbiology methods reduce the cost anddifficulty in genetic engineering andthus may present ways to slash thecost of making biologically based,genetically engineered weapons thatare vaccine resistant or combine tox-ins from different organisms. Fur-thermore, synthetic biologists havealready shown how terrorists couldobtain life forms that now exist onlyin carefully guarded facilities, suchas polio and 1918 influenza samples.Finally, synthetic biology’s efforts toreprogram life have raised concernsin some quarters that the technologycould one day be used to make radi-cally new weapons, such as patho-gens that could be narrowly targetedtoward populations with known ge-netic susceptibilities.Synthetic biologists have been debat-ing “precautionary measures” againstmisuse since at least 2004. Building onthe example of software engineers, whoturned their World Wide Web Consor-tium conventions into a surprisinglyeffective governance body, synthetic bi-ologists have explored using the field’sannual conventions to do the same forbiosecurity. Yet the community strug-gles to identify and pursue the beststrategy for guarding against misuse of synthetic biology.Many times before, science has in-spired remarkable hope for humanwelfare, and remarkable fears. Duringthe Cold War, scientists could do noth-ing to stop the Soviet Union and theWest from developing nuclear weap-ons, despite individual efforts. Everypolicy lever that mattered—funding,regulation, treaties—required govern-ment action. The terrorist threat andthe emergence of new nuclear pow-ers changed that calculus. To succeedtoday, terrorists and some nations willneed help (most likely, unwittingly)from science’s decentralized, free-wheeling, globalized networks. TheA. Q. Khan network, which sold nu-clear technology to Iran, Libya, andNorth Korea, was in many ways theprototype for this scenario.The science has changed, too. Thetwentieth century saw the emergenceof the scientific pursuits that will domi-nate this century: molecular biologyand its technological cousin, biotech-nology. Biotechnology has alreadycollapsed the traditional distinctionbetween basic research and products.Security experts rightly worry that bio-tech laboratories could similarly createorganisms that are immediately usefulas weapons, obviating the multibillion- dollar testing and development cycles
Stephen M. Maurer is an adjunct professorat the University of California-Berkeley’sGoldman School of Public Policy and director of its IT and Homeland SecurityProject. Laurie Zoloth is director of theCenter for Bioethics, Science and Societyand professor of medical ethics and hu-manities at Northwestern University.
BY STEPHEN M. MAURER & LAURIE ZOLOTH
synthesizing biosecurity
Protecting the public from the risks of synthetic biology depends on thescientific community’s will, capacity, and commitment to regulate itself.
M
Opinions
Vol. 63, No. 6, pp. 16-18DOI: 10.2968/063006004
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