[x-risk] Bioweapon Existential Risks

[Erik Aronesty]

Some brief thoughts on the risks of germ line genetic modification:

   We currently possess the technology to radically alter the species.   Viral vectors can, today, deliver genetic modifications, like PCK1 skeletal muscle upregulation, that could potentially eliminate obesity, and improve overall health and lifespan. 

   However, it also now possible to create weaponized, reproduction capable viral vectors using these therapeutic techniques.  For example a retrovirus engineered to that make humans sterile unless they have been previously vaccinated.      With no other side effects, such a virus could spread globally within a few years.   ( A small, poorly funded group, could effectively wipe out the whole species - except themselves and their vaccinated friends ).  

   There are any number of doomsday scenarios - many of which have been discussed in various papers, etc.  Most of these discussions have been limited to disease-causing pathogens.   Some attention should be paid to "therapeutic viral vectors" as an existential risk.

    Like other existential risks, the risk of weaponized therapeutic vectors can be readily compared with the existential threats caused by nuclear escalation, however there are important distinctions:

       - Nuclear bombs have been used in war.   They are, accordingly, a well known, monitored threat

       - Nuclear technology requires an infrastructure for refining and processing highly radioactive substances, which are difficult to work with and give off signatures that can be detected through walls, in the atmosphere, etc.    Typical enrichment and weapons production facilities employ hundreds of people, if not thousands - making it a nearly impossible secret to keep.

        - The cost and expertise needed to develop custom pathogens has dropped dramatically over the last 5 years.   

       - While some biological agents have been used as weapons, to little comparable effect, infectious agents have never been used publicly.   They are not well monitored, and not well known.

       - Infectious agents can be developed, refined, and genetically modified with a very small staff.   It's my opinion that a knowledgeable person working with a computer, free time and an income of, say, $50k per year could develop everything needed to hijack the planet using common retroviruses, without requiring the use of controlled substances.  Handy references are available online to do so: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19423/

       - Dangerous infectious agents, like bubonic plagues, are currently monitored.   But therapeutic viral vectors are not.  Oligonucleotide synthesis is a crucial step in the production of weaponized vectors.   While it's possible to engineer this in a home lab, it's likely that this task will be outsourced to one of the many companies that charge as little as $99 to create custom oligos.

Ideas:

I would propose that synthetic oligo production requests be centrally screened for those oligos likely to be used in contagious vector recombination.   (Given access and resources, someone could write software to do an adequate job within a month or so.)

There are, probably, other "monitorable agents" involved in the production of therapeutic viruses that could also be monitor this process - these should be investigated.

Anyone else?

- Erik

[Mega [Andreas Sturm]]

Well, you won't find people that want to build bioweapons in diy bio, I am sure.

First, it would need a lot of personnel and stuff to keep hundreds of cages of mice to be able to test if your virus works ( in 98% it won't work. in 99% of the cases the engineered virus won't be more dangerous than the wild-type virus. And in 99% of the remaining cases the virus will be recognized by our highly developed immune system)

[Avery louie]

Someone, or possibly several people, already did this with a human pathogen (polio, iirc).  I think it was out of SUNY.

Also, submitted sequences are already screened by synthesis companies.

" many of which have been discussed in various papers, etc." what papers?  do they discuss modified retroviral weapons or conventional attempts to weaponize bacterial or viral strains?

"Infectious agents can be developed, refined, and genetically modified with a very small staff.   It's my opinion that a knowledgeable person working with a computer, free time and an income of, say, $50k per year could develop everything needed to hijack the planet using common retroviruses, without requiring the use of controlled substances.  Handy references are available online to do so: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK19423/"  If this is true, how come we don't use viruses to cure cancer/genetic diseases already?

I don't think we are quite there yet.

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[Bacter]

"       - While some biological agents have been used as weapons, to little comparable effect, infectious agents have never been used publicly.   They are not well monitored, and not well known."

So we've... used noninfectious biological agents as weapons? I mean I guess punching a guy is a noninfectious biological agent, but we've (humans have) totally used infectious biological agents too. Just ask the huns!

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Tue, Aug 13, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Erik Aronesty <er...@q32.com> wrote:
> Ideas:
>
> I would propose that synthetic oligo production requests be centrally
> screened for those oligos likely to be used in contagious vector
> recombination. (Given access and resources, someone could write software
> to do an adequate job within a month or so.)

People have written the software that adopts the checks you mention
(which are govt recommended but not enforced law). It can't do much
for small sequences like Sebastian mentioned... you'd get red flags
all over the place with small enough fragments that could easily be
used to make larger assemblies.

None of this will matter when desktop DNA synthesizers make a comeback
in a few years, which they most likely will.

> There are, probably, other "monitorable agents" involved in the production
> of therapeutic viruses that could also be monitor this process - these
> should be investigated.

See 'select agent'.

[Paul Schroeer-Hannemann]

There is the possibility that some extremist group will use open-source bioengineering to make a super-plague, but I also think that would make it easier to develop a vaccine against it.

As for infectious gene therapy keep in mind that gene therapy usually uses deadly viruses as shells, HIV for instance is favored for immune system modifications, and is so delicate a procedure that it's doubtful it could work outside of a lab.  Most gene therapy trial patients (I don't believe any have been approved yet) aren't simply given an injection.  Instead a chunk of the tissue that is affected by their disease is extracted, infected with the vector in a petri dish, then grafted back into the patient.

On Wednesday, August 14, 2013 10:10:53 AM UTC-5, Bacter wrote:

"       - While some biological agents have been used as weapons, to little comparable effect, infectious agents have never been used publicly.   They are not well monitored, and not well known."

So we've... used noninfectious biological agents as weapons? I mean I guess punching a guy is a noninfectious biological agent, but we've (humans have) totally used infectious biological agents too. Just ask the huns!

 I think he's referring to chemical weapons derived from organisms such as ricin.

[Bacter]

Oh, I was just being a little facetious.

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[vrgopal]

He is referring to bacterial weapons and virus bombs.

V.Rajagopalan

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[Erik Aronesty]

Avery louie wrote:

> If this is true, how come we don't use viruses to cure cancer/genetic diseases already?

Because,like with all tools, it's easier to harm than help.   Not too difficult to make a retroviral vector that hurts people, when you don't care about off-target effects.   Lot harder to make one that helps.  Exact gene placement, expressed in targeted tissues only, no rejection/allergy problems, etc. 

> what papers?

Meselson, M., J. Guillemin, and M. Hugh-Jones. "Public health assessment of potential biological terrorism agents." Emerging infectious diseases 8.2 (2002): 225.

Dennis, David T., et al. "Tularemia as a biological weapon." JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association 285.21 (2001): 2763-2773.

Inglesby, Thomas V., et al. "Plague as a biological weapon." JAMA: the journal of the American Medical Association 283.17 (2000): 2281-2290.

Henderson, Donald A. "The looming threat of bioterrorism." Science 283.5406 (1999): 1279-1282.

Peruski, Leonard F., and Anne Harwood Peruski. "Rapid diagnostic assays in the genomic biology era: detection and identification of infectious disease and biological weapon agents." Biotechniques 35.4 (2003): 840-849.

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[Cathal Garvey (Phone)]

Having studied integrative gene therapy for 3.5 years I can comfortably call BS on that. The technology is all there for therapy, but it remains too high risk for much interest outside cancer therapy.

By contrast, the tools are NOT there to make effective pathogens: the immune system deals with halfassed bioweapons every day without you knowing.

In most biotech, there's no explicit adversary preventing success, and it's still hard. It doesn't get harder than attacking the immune system. What avenues do exist are little better than chemical warfare; allergenic rather than infectious, for eg., or poisonous metabolites (ricin). These have their own drawbacks which have always made them unpopular.

For a bioweapon to be an "existential hazard", it must be hypertransmissible (implying long infectious incubation time), hypermorbid (high infectivity on exposure) and hyperlethal. At least two of these traits are already in conflict, and two are downright impossible given the genetic diversity in humanity: efficiency will vary strongly regionally. Better yet, as previously distinct ethnicities and races exchange genes more every year, humanity is becoming even more robust and diverse; it's getting harder and harder to make an "existential risk" bioweapon.

So, leaving that aside, you could still potentially, with great difficulty and with profound expertise, make a horribly efficient bioweapon. But the immunology chops you'd need put the lie to this bullshit notion of a dirty gang of angry bandits doing it.

You're looking at a more advanced programme, something like the massive, well-funded human extermination research programs of the US and former USSR. Probably also China and a bunch of EU warmongers, too.

If we ever get to the stage where people below this level can "compile" bioweapons, we'll also be at the stage where it's even easier to churn out a vaccine. After all, artificial attenuation of a virus is trivial: chop out the polymerase, for example, and provide it in trans in a cultivation cell line. Result: instant attenuation and highly "convincing" viral capsules, complete with ability to infect and produce immunogenic proteins in target cells.

People will still die during the days you need to make the vaccine. But the hypothetical biowar becomes more costly than chemical warfare, and far more grotesque.

Bringing us back to the chief reason this isn't likely to be a big part of future war: the fact that chemical weapons are so rarely deployed, despite a truly chilling degree of efficiency. Even most violent dictators won't resort to chemical weapons, because doing so destroys any hope of being remembered as "the good guy", and international horror incites intervention. Look at Syria: Assad butchers thousands of his people with conventional weapons, and nobody on the global stage gives a shit. The instant he deploys chemicals to kill ~100 people, even his allies in the US are talking about invading.

Biowar isn't profitable (while computer viruses can be). It isn't perceived as honourable like some other forms of butchery. It's less efficient or swift than chemicals, and likely leaves lethal residues, preventing occupation. The backlash potential is huge. The development costs are high, and they are one-use.

Bioweapons don't work out. They have always been possible, they've been toyed with since antiquity. And they've always been abandoned, because they suck, badly, at everything you want out of a weapon.

So let's stop worrying about biohackers and resume worrying about the fact that most powerful nations spend more on war and weapons than medicine, emergency housing or food aid. You want to stop the false spectre of "terrorism"? Eliminate poverty.

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