What actions do we put forward to prevent people from creating/modifying viruses?

[Techno-Druid]

With tech such as CRISPR becoming more affordable, how do we prevent people from engineering diseases and viral infections from the inside of their garage? The possibility of a worldwide pandemic created by your neighbor John is a bit frightening.

I'm certainly not for banning or preventing CRISPR and other genetic engineering tech from being reachable by the general populace, but I think some regulations would need to be imposed.

This might not seem like an issue worth discussing at this moment in time, but I still think it's an interesting topic. The more we dicuss it, the more opinions we all hear about it, can ultimately lead to a solution that doesn't involve outright bans or at least something that can be mutually agreed on by the majority.

[Independent voter]

A global agreement that we unite, attack and utterly destroy anyone who'd weaponized the human genome.

[Techno-Druid]

A global agreement that we unite, attack and utterly destroy anyone who'd weaponized the human genome.

That's one way to go about it, although it may be difficult reaching a worldwide agreement on something like this.

[PC2]

With tech such as CRISPR becoming more affordable, how do we prevent people from engineering diseases and viral infections from the inside of their garage? The possibility of a worldwide pandemic created by your neighbor John is a bit frightening.

I'm certainly not for banning or preventing CRISPR and other genetic engineering tech from being reachable by the general populace, but I think some regulations would need to be imposed.

This might not seem like an issue worth discussing at this moment in time, but I still think it's an interesting topic. The more we dicuss it, the more opinions we all hear about it, can ultimately lead to a solution that doesn't involve outright bans or at least something that can be mutually agreed on by the majority.

In the far future solutions would have to be more defensive. For example, it could be common policy that all new buildings are automatically hermetically sealable. We already have some organizations that exist to deal with potential bio-crisis, so its a matter of giving them more resources and the public more layers of safety from the general atmosphere.

[Underverse]

First, it's insanely expensive to gather the materials needed. Incubators, ultracentrifuges, media, tubes, cells, pipettes, liquid nitrogen storage - the list goes on, especially if you're working with hazardous materials.

Second, it's really hard to predict how to modify viruses in ways that make them more virulent. It's not as simply as shuffling together some virulence coding regions and sticking it into a vsv-g pseudotyped lentivirus. Viruses often have several coding regions packed into a single sequence, just using different reading frames or strands. Exchanging a few letters here and there could completely abrogate its function.

Third, CRISPR doesn't have anything to do with viruses. CRISPR is useful for in vivo editing and relies on host genome repair proteins in order to actually edit DNA. The technology needed for making viruses is simple and has been around for a long time. You just do some standard restriction cloning (or gibson cloning if you have more money) and then transfect your plasmid into some 293T cells, and then harvest media, ultracentrifuge and resuspend in a small volume. There, you have your virus.

Finally, good luck getting oligos coding for dangerous material from third party sources - all it takes is a quick BLAST search and you could be legally fucked. Any company that synthesizes DNA requires that you agree to a legally binding agreement that none of the criteria are met; some of those criteria involve coding for pathogenic factors.

So there are a lot of barriers. That isn't to say that it can't be done by some rich guy on an island with a lot of time, money, and help. But it would be harder than running your own cartel.

[Techno-Druid]

First, it's insanely expensive to gather the materials needed. Incubators, ultracentrifuges, media, tubes, cells, pipettes, liquid nitrogen storage - the list goes on, especially if you're working with hazardous materials.

Second, it's really hard to predict how to modify viruses in ways that make them more virulent. It's not as simply as shuffling together some virulence coding regions and sticking it into a vsv-g pseudotyped lentivirus. Viruses often have several coding regions packed into a single sequence, just using different reading frames or strands. Exchanging a few letters here and there could completely abrogate its function.

Third, CRISPR doesn't have anything to do with viruses. CRISPR is useful for in vivo editing and relies on host genome repair proteins in order to actually edit DNA. The technology needed for making viruses is simple and has been around for a long time. You just do some standard restriction cloning (or gibson cloning if you have more money) and then transfect your plasmid into some 293T cells, and then harvest media, ultracentrifuge and resuspend in a small volume. There, you have your virus.

Finally, good luck getting oligos coding for dangerous material from third party sources - all it takes is a quick BLAST search and you could be legally fucked. Any company that synthesizes DNA requires that you agree to a legally binding agreement that none of the criteria are met; some of those criteria involve coding for pathogenic factors.

So there are a lot of barriers. That isn't to say that it can't be done by some rich guy on an island with a lot of time, money, and help. But it would be harder than running your own cartel.

Ah, thank you, I was unsure how viral editing really worked.

Although I have to ask, do you think as we progress, the resources for making a virus could become easier to obtain?

[Underverse]

Ah, thank you, I was unsure how viral editing really worked.

Although I have to ask, do you think as we progress, the resources for making a virus could become easier to obtain?

Yeah definitely, everything becomes cheaper with time. I mean, it's still way outside the price range for your average joe.

I think eventually the limiting factor will be knowledge, and the best defense will be wide availability of either innate antiviral defenses (so, maybe CRISPRing something into extant humans as a general viral defense, maybe even an adaptive defense if we have the technology) or fast-acting retroactive defenses, like short peptides or something that can be synthesized on the spot and prevent viral entry similarly to how antibodies work.

[Vash The Stampede]

You teach people about genetics and encourage learning. The moment someones country falls behind in knowledge is when you're vulnerable. Most terrorist attacks are because the country isn't up to speed on technology. China isn't slowing down on genetic engineering.