"Scientists can order expressly designed chunks of DNA from a number of DNA synthesis companies around the world and then fuse these bits together to create new biological 'parts.' And the same technology that could lead to valuable inventions can also be used to make deadly bioweapons -- hypothetically, terrorists could order DNA to recreate the smallpox virus or design an even more deadly pathogen...
At the recent Synthetic Biology 2.0 (SB2) conference, held in Berkeley, CA, scientists devoted an entire day to a single topic: the security concerns of the fledgling field. The result was an evolving community declaration outlining how scientists and companies should behave to ensure both openness and security of research.
The researchers pledged, for example, to develop better software to detect when orders for dangerous DNA sequences have been placed with DNA synthesis companies, and they recommended that scientists work only with companies who use such software."
Yeah, that will keep this technology away from terrorists. "Sorry Omar. There's a non-binding community declaration that says we should only order DNA from companies which check to see if the sequences might be dangerous." To their credit, at least they are trying to mitigate this threat.
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