The biosecurity benefits of genetic engineering attribution.
review · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 33293537.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-19149-2 and PMC identifier 7722838.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Biology can be misused, and the risk of this causing widespread harm increases in step with the rapid march of technological progress. A key security challenge involves attribution: determining, in the wake of a human-caused biological event, who was responsible. Recent scientific developments have demonstrated a capability for detecting whether an organism involved in such an event has been genetically modified and, if modified, to infer from its genetic sequence its likely lab of origin. We believe this technique could be developed into powerful forensic tools to aid the attribution of outbreaks caused by genetically engineered pathogens, and thus protect against the potential misuse of synthetic biology.
Medical subject headings
- Bioterrorism
- DNA
- Forensic Genetics
- Organisms, Genetically Modified
- Security Measures