Friday, November 03, 2017

So, this is how the world ends?

Geez, I don't like sound of this:

Mail-Order CRISPR Kits Allow Absolutely Anyone to Hack DNA

Experts debate what amateur scientists could accomplish with the powerful DNA editing tool—and whether its ready availability is cause for concern
It's from Scientific American, and ends with an unknown number of DNA hacking scientists saying it's nothing to be to be too worried about: 
Finally, what about the nightmare scenario: Is CRISPR so easy to use that we need to worry about biohackers—either accidentally or intentionally—creating dangerous pathogens? Carroll and others think that the danger of putting CRISPR in the hands of the average person is relatively low. “People have imagined scenarios where scientists could use CRISPR to generate a virulent pathogen, ” he says. “How big is the risk? It’s not zero, but it’s fairly small.” Gersbach agrees. “Right now, it’s difficult to imagine how it’d be dangerous in a real way,” he explains, “If you want to do harm, there are much easier and simpler ways than using this highly sophisticated genetic editing technique.”
Scientists in fields like this have an incentive to downplay risk, so if they actually use words like "relatively low", it doesn't exactly fill me with confidence...

1 comment:

John said...

I think you'll find the utilisation of this technology is lot more complex than presented. It's not a product from Ikea and even that would confuse most terrorists.