Does having genetic code made freely available pose any security risks?
A. The answer is yes, there are some. They’re relatively well-known as they exist today, and are few in number, thankfully. For example, if you could use DNA synthesis to reconstruct genomes, then you might be able to obtain the genomes for human pathogens that are otherwise difficult to acquire. Ebola would be one example, where we don’t know, to my understanding, the natural reservoir of the virus. So if you wanted to get access for Ebola, you would have to either wait for the next outbreak, fly somewhere, risk death and return. Or you could go on the Internet, download the DNA sequence and pay somebody $20,000 to make it for you. So that’s an interesting possibility. What could we do to prepare against such a misapplication? Actually, this one is relatively well-prepared against. We could be in close communication with all the constructors of synthetic DNA and ask them to check what they’re making so that they don’t unwittingly make for somebody the genome of a hemorrhagic fever. Le
