Scientific advisers to President Obama warn that the U.S. urgently needs a new biodefense strategy and should regularly brief President-elect Donald Trump on the dangers posed by new technologies like CRISPR, gene therapy, and synthetic DNA, which they say could be coopted by terrorists.
In a letter to the president, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) urges the creation of a new entity charged with developing a national biodefense strategy within six months.
The council is also urging the president to ask Congress to establish a $2 billion fund to respond to public health emergencies that could be caused by new biotechnologies.
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[T]he council argues that synthetic DNA, gene therapy, and genome-editing technologies like CRISPR open up new possibilities for intentional misuse, such as modifying a virus or bacteria to make it resistant to drugs….…
It will be nearly impossible to monitor all such experiments, [says Todd Kuiken, senior research scholar with the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at North Carolina State University]. But a better national surveillance system that includes detailed information about a germ’s DNA, as is suggested in the letter, could tell government officials whether pathogens involved in disease outbreaks have been engineered or modified.
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