The genetic engineering of deadly pathogens is not the sort of thing that a terrorist or would-be supervillain could easily attempt in a kitchen. But the quickening pace of genetics research has plenty of scientists worried. Suzanne Fry, director of the Strategic Futures Group at the Office for the Director of National Intelligence, told a group at last month’s SXSW technology conference in Austin, Texas, that synthetic biology was a big concern among many of the technologists she’s been interviewing recently. “Some very, very prominent scientists have said that that worries them very much,” she said.
George Church, a Harvard Medical School researcher widely considered a father of modern genetic research, offered a somber assessment of the future of genetically engineered bioterror. “How would we have calculated the odds of the events on 9-11-2001 on 9-10-2001?” he said via email, “or the Aum Shinrikyo [Tokyo subway attacks]? Hopefully, before anything happens, the good guys will get better at new pathogen detection and immunity soon — both to prevent this scenario and naturally emerging infectious diseases.”
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