by More regulation is needed to prevent malicious actors from buying DNA online and using it to make dangerous pathogens, experts have warned.
DNA – the building blocks of life – can be easily produced in laboratories and sold for all sorts of purposes, from academic research to vaccine development.
However, it is estimated that one in five suppliers worldwide do not check the code they create or those who order it – meaning they will not know if they are giving the DNA of dangerous pathogens to rogue buyers.
“At the moment, it would be relatively easy for a malicious actor to go and find a supplier that is not screening,” said Piers Millett, executive director of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), a new project. committed to strengthening biosecurity.
“We know from Interpol that there are malicious actors around the world who try to get that biology to do intentional harm,” he said.
IBBIS launched the Nuclear Threat Initiative on Thursday, a non-governmental organization dedicated to reducing nuclear and biological threats, at the Munich Security Conference.
It will be based in Geneva and will collaborate with governments, international organizations, industry and academia to develop tools to reduce risks in biology and biotechnology.
One such tool is already live: the so-called ‘Common Mechanism’, a free-to-use software system that providers can install that filters DNA orders to ensure genetic building blocks don’t fall off high-risk pathogens in. the wrong hands.
“The database itself is checking, ‘does this sequence come from a dangerous pathogen?,'” Mr Millett said.
“We can look in some public databases and say, ‘Yes, the ordering sequence is indeed known to be an important part of causing this disease or making that toxin.’
“The hope is that no matter where you’re doing DNA in the world, you’ll be able to sift through the orders and understand the potential hazards. [with them]and implement procedures [to avoid them].”
‘We don’t really know who is doing DNA’
The global DNA sequencing market is estimated to be worth $44 billion by 2030.
Since the completion of the Human Genome Project, technological advances and improvements have accelerated and costs have been reduced to the point where some laboratories can sequence over 100 trillion DNA bases per year.
DNA suppliers affiliated with the International Gene Synthesis Consortium voluntarily screen synthesis orders and customers, but these companies only account for about 80 percent of the global DNA synthesis market share.
That means 20 percent of orders are likely to go unscreened, according to IBBIS.
More transparency is needed in the industry, Mr Mallet said, adding that outside of Europe and North America, “we don’t really know who is doing DNA. We are working with partners in different parts of the world to better understand that.”
He highlighted China as an example. There is only one Chinese DNA supplier registered with the International Gene Synthesis Consortium, Mr Mallet explained, but “anecdotally, I know there is a huge demand in China for synthetic DNA. And I also know that there are plenty of companies that are meeting this demand at home.”
Professor Stuart Neil, a virologist at King’s College London, said there were “serious concerns” about DNA providers inadvertently providing “larger DNA pools to rebuild a pathogen”.
“This became a concern after 9/11 when Eckard Wimmer [an American scientist] ordering DNA fragments and stitching polio together in the lab to show it could be done.”
However, he said that most companies that synthesize DNA “usually screen and flag their orders to make sure the orders are legit”. Intelligence services will also be informed in some cases, he suggested.
The UK has no commercial DNA synthesis capacity, meaning that British academics and pharmaceuticals are dependent on overseas suppliers.
“We have to order from abroad which slows us down a lot, especially since Brexit, on all kinds of biological research,” said Professor Neil.
Mr Mallet said that while IBBIS does its best to put guardrails around biotechnology and DNA synthesis, “it’s important that it doesn’t stop the kind of science and research we need to solve the big challenges. We cannot obstruct legitimate science.”
He said: “What we want to do is to raise that barrier so that it is much more difficult for those who are doing illegitimate things, those who want to cause harm, or sequences for terrible orders to get. .”
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