Section 18.5. The Risk of Biological Hacking

18.5. The Risk of Biological Hacking

Open source synthetic biology could result in a broad base of genomic skills in society and lead to low-cost gene-based commercial products. However, some people worry that convenient biological programming raises the chance that amateurs, hackers, or even terrorists will use the same tools to develop malicious genetic designs, either on purpose or by accident. While in silico genetic experimentation arguably poses little risk (the information remains within the digital domain), gaining access to synthetic DNA, or the equipment to make synthetic DNA, is not difficult, even for private individuals. The equipment for a functional DNA lab can be bought on eBay and would fit in a basement, kitchen, or garage. With the complete genomes for dozens of viruses publicly availableincluding Ebola, Marsburg, and SARSa biological incident involving a synthetic virus may be a matter of when, not if. The proof of concept has already been demonstrated: in 2002, researchers at SUNY Stony Brook assembled an infectious synthetic poliovirus using mail-order DNA fragments.

The threat of a carefully engineered bioweapon unlike anything found in nature is thus real and significant. A CIA document titled "The Darker Bioweapons Future" published in 2003 cites a panel of experts that note "the effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse than any disease known to man." This panel also noted that genomics is entering "an explosive growth phase" and that "the resulting wave of knowledge will evolve rapidly and be so broad, complex, and widely available to the public that traditional intelligence means for monitoring WMD development could prove inadequate." These warnings make clear that the consequences of hacking DNA can be greater than those of hacking computer code. DNA programs, if they are chemically synthesized, will share physical reality with us. If released into the environment, the genetic information cannot be easily deleted or traced. Unwanted genetic distribution is already a problem in agricultural biotechnology, underscoring the fact that this is not a purely theoretical problem. Additionally, unlike in the digital world, nature cannot be "rebooted" if we make a serious mistake or encounter unexpected problems.

Yet, despite these concerns, synthetic DNA itself does not pose a new risk to society or the environment. Conventional laboratory methods of mutating and selecting organisms for enhanced pathogenicity have existed for decades, suggesting that those intent on using organisms for malicious purposes are probably already well equipped to do so. Genetic engineering is too powerful a technology to banish or outlaw, and it is already too late to suppress synthetic technologies: the underlying chemistries have been available for more than 20 years. Synthetic DNA will act mainly as an innovative accelerant, affecting all biotechnological applications, positive or negative. With synthetic technologies, the appearance of designer pathogens tuned to defeat our immune systems will not appear overnight, but we can no longer risk being complacent. For maximum safety, we need to broadly foster genetic awareness and skills in society, if only to better deal with rapidly evolving natural threats like SARS, Asian bird flu, or West Nile virus.

This makes the decision of whether to support OSB a critical one that extends beyond IP or economics. OSB may prove necessary as a means to assimilate the body of genetic information as a whole, an inherent advantage unlikely to be matched by more focused proprietary groups. No one company has the resources to understand the full complexity of DNA, the most difficult programming language for humans to comprehend. Because we didn't create the language or the computing environment, we must reverse engineer our understandingtaking systems apart one organism at a time, one cell type at a time, and finally one gene at a time. Putting all this data together again to get the big picture is like making a giant jigsaw puzzle. It requires cooperation, not fragmentation, to get perspective. By this rationale, the use of open genomics may bring far greater safety and security to synthetics. It should minimize fundamental design errors while also maximizing the responsive capability to unexpected challenges, including natural and engineered threats. Open computer software is also widely regarded as being more secure and more adaptive to threats than proprietary offerings.