Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat

MIT Technology Review ^ | 02/09/2016 | Antonio Regalado

[MarchonDC09122009]

Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600774/top-us-intelligence-official-calls-gene-editing-a-wmd-threat/

Gene Editing Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat

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Biomedicine Top U.S. Intelligence Official Calls Gene Editing a WMD Threat

Easy to use. Hard to control. The intelligence community now sees CRISPR as a threat to national safety.

    by Antonio Regalado February 9, 2016

Genome editing is a weapon of mass destruction.

That’s according to James Clapper, U.S. director of national intelligence, who on Tuesday, in the annual worldwide threat assessment report of the U.S. intelligence community, added gene editing to a list of threats posed by “weapons of mass destruction and proliferation.”

Gene editing refers to several novel ways to alter the DNA inside living cells. The most popular method, CRISPR, has been revolutionizing scientific research, leading to novel animals and crops, and is likely to power a new generation of gene treatments for serious diseases (see “Everything You Need to Know About CRISPR’s Monster Year”).

It is gene editing’s relative ease of use that worries the U.S. intelligence community, according to the assessment. “Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications,” the report said.

The choice by the U.S. spy chief to call out gene editing as a potential weapon of mass destruction, or WMD, surprised some experts. It was the only biotechnology appearing in a tally of six more conventional threats, like North Korea’s suspected nuclear detonation on January 6, Syria’s undeclared chemical weapons, and new Russian cruise missiles that might violate an international treaty. James Clapper, the U.S. director of national intelligence, oversees spying agencies with a combined budget of more than $50 billion.

The report is an unclassified version of the “collective insights” of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and half a dozen other U.S. spy and fact-gathering operations.

Although the report doesn’t mention CRISPR by name, Clapper clearly had the newest and the most versatile of the gene-editing systems in mind. The CRISPR technique’s low cost and relative ease of use—the basic ingredients can be bought online for $60—seems to have spooked intelligence agencies.

“Research in genome editing conducted by countries with different regulatory or ethical standards than those of Western countries probably increases the risk of the creation of potentially harmful biological agents or products,” the report said.

The concern is that biotechnology is a “dual use” technology—meaning normal scientific developments could also be harnessed as weapons. The report noted that new discoveries “move easily in the globalized economy, as do personnel with the scientific expertise to design and use them.”

Clapper didn’t lay out any particular bioweapons scenarios, but scientists have previously speculated about whether CRISPR could be used to make “killer mosquitoes,” plagues that wipe out staple crops, or even a virus that snips at people’s DNA.

“Biotechnology, more than any other domain, has great potential for human good, but also has the possibility to be misused,” says Daniel Gerstein, a senior policy analyst at RAND and a former under secretary at the Department of Homeland Defense. “We are worried about people developing some sort of pathogen with robust capabilities, but we are also concerned about the chance of misutilization. We could have an accident occur with gene editing that is catastrophic, since the genome is the very essence of life.”

Piers Millet, an expert on bioweapons at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., says Clapper’s singling out of gene editing on the WMD list was “a surprise,” since making a bioweapon—say, an extra-virulent form of anthrax—still requires mastery of a “wide raft of technologies.”

Development of bioweapons is banned by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, a Cold War–era treaty that outlawed biological warfare programs. The U.S., China, Russia, and 172 other countries have signed it. Millet says that experts who met in Warsaw last September to discuss the treaty felt a threat from terrorist groups was still remote, given the complexity of producing a bioweapon. Millet says the group concluded that “for the foreseeable future, such applications are only within the grasp of states.”

The intelligence assessment drew specific attention to the possibility of using CRISPR to edit the DNA of human embryos to produce genetic changes in the next generation of people—for example, to remove disease risks. It noted that fast advances in genome editing in 2015 compelled “groups of high-profile U.S. and European biologists to question unregulated editing of the human germ line (cells that are relevant for reproduction), which might create inheritable genetic changes.”

So far, the debate over changing the next generation’s genes has been mostly an ethical question, and the report didn’t say how such a development would be considered a WMD, although it’s possible to imagine a virus designed to kill or injure people by altering their genomes. Tagged

CRISPR, bioweapons, Weapon of Mass Destruction Credit

Photograph by Saul Loeb | Getty

Antonio Regalado Senior Editor, Biomedicine

I am the senior editor for biomedicine for MIT Technology Review. I look for stories about how technology is changing medicine and biomedical research. Before joining MIT Technology Review in July 2011, I lived in São Paulo, Brazil,… More

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Share your thoughts Biomedicine We Have the Technology to Destroy All Zika Mosquitoes

Fear of the Zika virus could generate support for gene drives, a radical technology able to make species go extinct.

    by Antonio Regalado February 8, 2016

A controversial genetic technology able to wipe out the mosquito carrying the Zika virus will be available within months, scientists say.

The technology, called a “gene drive,” was demonstrated only last year in yeast cells, fruit flies, and a species of mosquito that transmits malaria. It uses the gene-snipping technology CRISPR to force a genetic change to spread through a population as it reproduces.

Three U.S. labs that handle mosquitoes, two in California and one in Virginia, say they are already working toward a gene drive for Aedes aegypti, the type of mosquito blamed for spreading Zika. If deployed, the technology could theoretically drive the species to extinction.

“We could have it easily within a year,” says Anthony James, a molecular biologist at the University of California, Irvine.

Any release of a gene drive in the wild would be hotly debated by ecologists. So far, no public health agency has thrown its weight behind the idea. But with Zika sowing fear across Latin America and beyond, the technology is likely to get a closer look. “Four weeks ago we were trying to justify why we are doing this. Now they’re saying ‘Get the lead out,’” says James. “It’s absolutely going to chan­­­­­­­­­ge the conversation.”

The Zika virus is now spreading “explosively" in the Americas, according to the World Health Organization, which last week declared a global health emergency. While the virus causes only a mild rash, the epidemic is frightening because of a suspected link to 4,000 children born in Brazil with microcephaly, or shrunken heads.

There’s no easy way to stop Zika. There is no vaccine and developing one could take several years. Brazil is sending 220,000 soldiers door-to-door to check for mosquitoes breeding in old tires and swimming pools. Women are being asked to delay pregnancy.

Gene-drive technology could be ready sooner than a vaccine, but it’s no quick fix, either, scientists caution. Self-annihilating mosquitoes will first have to undergo tests in the lab, then perhaps on an island, before they could be released more broadly. Regulations and public debate could stretch the time line out for years.

The Aedes aegypti mosquito is not native to the Americas. It’s an invasive species that is now found from Florida to Argentina and whose range could expand with climate change. In addition to the Zika virus, its bite also transmits the chikinguya and dengue viruses. Dengue fever causes 100 million people to fall ill each year.

Because of the extent of the problems Aedes aegypti causes, some scientists favor using advanced technology to drive the species to extinction, at least in the Americas. “These mosquitoes truly have little value,” says Zach Adelman, an entomologist at Virginia Tech who works with Aedes aegypti. “People in favor of eradication are going to be able to plead their case.”

While gene-drive technology could save human lives, the feature that makes it so powerful—that mosquitoes themselves spread it—also raises concerns over unforeseen ecological consequences. What if the DNA change somehow jumps to other insects? If things were to go wrong, would scientists be able to recall it? An expert panel of the National Academy of Sciences, in Washington, D.C., is expected to release a report in May on responsible use of the technology. “I don’t think there is a real consensus yet on gene drives,” says Keegan Sawyer, director of the study. “There are differing camps.” The Zika virus is now a global health emergency, according to the World Health Organization. In Brazil, a worker enters a house to spray for mosquitoes.

Todd Kuiken, an environmental scientist who studies governance of new biotechnology for the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., says even an invasive species might be filling a useful biological niche. “I don’t think the entire ecosystem is going to collapse if you removed an invasive, but there is a lot of interconnectedness between species, especially in the tropics,” he says. “My concern is more the ecological interactions.”

The technology is still extraordinarily new. The systems work because scientists are able to weave gene-editing machinery directly into an insect’s DNA. That way, instead of a given gene passing to half of a mosquito’s offspring, as would normally happen, it spreads to all of them, a phenomenon dubbed “super inheritance.”

Depending on the genetic payload scientists choose to spread, they could eradicate insects or make them unable to spread disease.

The latter tactic, called “population replacement,” works by spreading a gene that makes mosquitoes unsuitable hosts for a pathogen so they won’t infect people. This approach was taken by James and collaborators last November, when, working in a secure lab, they developed a drive that spread a gene among mosquitoes which blocks the malaria parasite from developing (see “With This Genetic Engineering Technology There Is No Turning Back”).

But a gene drive can also make mosquito populations disappear. The simplest way to do that is to spread a genetic payload that leads to only male offspring. As the “male-only” instructions spread with each new generation, eventually there would be no females left, says Adelman. His lab discovered the Aedes aegypti gene that determines sex only last spring. The next step will be to link it to a gene drive.

Kevin Esvelt, a gene-drive researcher at MIT’s Media Lab who has been outspoken about the need to proceed cautiously, also thinks Aedes aegypti eradication should be the goal, so long as the public is onboard and the safety of the idea proved.

“Technologically, we could probably do it in a couple of years,” says Esvelt. “I’m sure we’ll be able to do it before people can agree if we should.”

[MarchonDC09122009]

CRISPR gene editing has greatly reduced the expense and complexity of manipulating DNA. Pentagon now recognizes what a threat that is if an apocalyptic minded terrorist organization (think Iran's radicalized religion of peace) decides to go "Twelve Monkeys" on us. It's always sumthin...

[wbarmy]

DDT, DDT, and more DDT.

May Rachel Carson enjoy what ever she is suffering for her evil.

[Caipirabob]

Alan Moore’s Miracleman saga...

Old nazi: “Overman, you haf come at last...”
Genetically engineered Miracleman: “Yes. You can go now.” *SPLATTER*

[pgkdan]

Geez dude...you really harshed my buzz!

[ifinnegan]

This is utter nonsense as presented at this time.

Article like this are meant to influence public opinion and funding agencies.

[arthurus]

Development of bioweapons is banned by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, a Cold War–era treaty that outlawed biological warfare programs.

It is fatuous to even mention this because such agreements are, in the best case, utterly irrelevant to what occurs, and in the worst case they promote the bad guys accelerating attempts to use the banned procedures or weapons under cover of the ban.

[usurper]

This is why it is so important that our military stays focused on global warming. Idiots.

[UCANSEE2]

“There’s no easy way to stop Zika. “

DDT.

[dhs12345]

Exactly. People are worried about nukes well what about biological warfare.

[baltimorepoet]

Development of bioweapons is banned by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, a Cold War–era treaty that outlawed biological warfare programs. It is fatuous to even mention this because such agreements are, in the best case, utterly irrelevant to what occurs, and in the worst case they promote the bad guys accelerating attempts to use the banned procedures or weapons under cover of the ban.

I think it was defector Alibek that said the Soviets had developed Ebolapox... a hybrid of Ebola and Smallpox.

I can only imagine the havoc a group like ISIS could cause with ideas like Ebolapox.

[HoosierWordsmith]

“This is utter nonsense as presented at this time.”
_____________________________________________

Maybe nonsense today, but not in the foreseeable future...

CRISPR opens the door quickly and easily for targeted manipulation of essentially any genome, including humans...

Conceivably, this technology could lower the threshold to entry for rogue states like Iran, Isis, North Korea to the biowarfare game.

[ifinnegan]

Yes, I know.

CRISPER makes DNA modification easier, but that only marginally makes the type of development easier.