May 3, 2017 In recent years however the military--mostly under the umbrella of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency--has created a new suite of programs that take a very different approach to harnessing the power of nature: synthetic biology. Among other initiatives researchers at DARPA are attempting to biologically engineer insects to deliver protective genes to plants; to transform bacteria and yeast into factories to produce on-demand chemicals and fuels; and to develop methods to reverse any threats posed by gene drives. (Gene drives are a mechanism, both natural and human-induced, that drives genetic traits through a population, in some instances to suppress a population.)
These programs represent a new and controversial approach to leveraging the natural world--one that in essence militarizes the environment. The technologies that emerge will not only be a big deal for the innovations they will bring but also for the legal and ethical lines they may cross. Many of these projects are strictly for defense, rather than offense, but given the size of the budgets here the U.S. military investment makes up a rather large portion of the money in synthetic biology research. It’s possible then that DARPA’s work is bending the entire field of synthetic biology toward military applications.
Before 2008 the federal government invested basically negligible amounts in synthetic biology. But between 2008 and 2014 it poured approximately $819 million into synbio research. Since 2012 the majority of that funding came not from the budgets of civilian organizations like the National Science Foundation or the National Institutes of Health but from DARPA and other Defense Department initiatives. DARPA created at least five programs, most of which are now housed at its Biological Technologies Office, that demonstrate the agency’s interest in ecological manipulations.
At first DARPA focused on developing organisms that can create materials, fuel and other chemical compounds. DARPA launched its first synthetic biology program, Living Foundries, in 2013. It seeks to “increase the speed of the biological design-build-test-learn cycle” in order to create hundreds of new molecules that can be used for manufacturing biological products ranging from antibiotics to super-strong building materials.
In subsequent years the organization began taking a slightly different path. First it added Biological Robustness in Complex Settings, a program designed to overcome a major synthetic biology obstacle: Most synthetically designed organisms don’t live or function very well outside of highly controlled conditions, let alone in the natural environment. DARPA also created Safe Genes, which focuses on creating gene drives--a technology that promotes inheritance of specific traits in a species that can be safely introduced or combatted in the environment. (For example, researchers are looking into creating gene drives that will make it impossible for mosquitoes to spread certain diseases.) The program aims to study predictable and reversible gene editors and other measures that might counter undesirable outcomes.
Then there’s the Insect Allies program, which aims to use advanced biotechnologies to engineer insects that can help protect crops from naturally occurring or intentionally designed pathogens. And in late 2016 DARPA issued a call-out for academics to submit grant proposals to develop ecological niche-preference engineering technologies, which would “enable the genetic engineering of an organism’s preference for a niche (e.g., temperature, range, food source and habitat)” in order to lessen their “economic, health and resource burdens.” Imagine an agricultural pest that has a niche, or preference, for a particular crop. Maybe the leaves of that plant produce a certain chemical compound that the pest is attracted to or the flower gives off an appealing scent. If you could engineer the insect to change its “niche preference” for that particular trait, or change the crop to prevent that niche from being produced, you could reduce the impact that insect has because it will have lost its niche.
So why is DARPA making investments in synthetic biology? DARPA clearly states that the existing initiatives focus on countering biological threats (be it from nation-states, rogue actors or possibly “mistakes” from other scientific research), and I don’t doubt they serve this need. However the optics of these programs are problematic on a number of fronts, particularly because of who is funding them. If we agree that agriculture is under threat from biological attacks “either naturally occurring or are intentionally designed and released to cause harm,” as the Insect Allies program states, then why not have the Agricultural Department lead this program? If the government is concerned about the threats posed by gene drives, then why isn’t the National Science Foundation or the Environmental Protection Agency funding the Safe Genes research? Because the U.S. is funding these initiatives through the Department of Defense rather than a civilian organization it’s not hard to see how some in the international community may perceive these as potential bioweapons programs rather than investments in purely defensive technologies. After all, if the U.S. is able to engineer an insect to carry a virus for protective purposes, it wouldn’t be hard to engineer that same insect to carry a deadly virus for offensive ones. It’s a classic dual-use technology scenario. https://slate.com/technology/2017/05/what-happens-if-darpa-uses-synthetic-biology-to-manipulate-mother-nature.html
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12-4-17 “Many countries [will] have concerns when this technology comes from DARPA, a US military science agency,” one dipllomat said. “You may be able to remove viruses or the entire mosquito population, but that may also have downstream ecological effects on species that depend on them. My main worry,” he added, “is that we do something irreversible to the environment, despite our good intentions, before we fully appreciate the way that this technology will work.”
Jim Thomas, a co-director of the ETC group which obtained the emails, said the US military’s influence in furthering this technology would strengthen the case for a moratorium. “The dual-use nature of altering and eradicating entire populations is as much a threat to peace and food security as it is a threat to ecosystems,” he said. “Militarization of gene drive funding may even contravene the Enmod convention against hostile uses of environmental modification technologies.”…
Todd Kuiken, who has worked with the GBIRd (genetic biocontrol) program, which receives $6.4 million from DARPA, said that the US military’s centrality to genetic technology funding meant that “researchers who depend on grants for their research may reorient their projects to fit the narrow aims of these military agencies,” which could include doomsday genetic weapons. Between 2008 and 2014, the US government spent about $820 million on synthetic biology. Since 2012, most of this has come from DARPA and other military agencies, Kuiken says.
DARPA believes that a sharp decrease in the costs of gene-editing toolkits has created a greater opportunity for hostile or rogue actors to experiment with the technology. “This convergence of low cost and high availability means that applications for gene editing--both positive and negative--could arise from people or states operating outside of the traditional scientific community and international norms,” the official said. “It is incumbent on DARPA to perform this research and develop technologies that can protect against accidental and intentional misuse.”
Interest in the technology among US army bureaus has shot up since a secret report by the elite Jason group of military scientists last year “received considerable attention among various agencies of the US government,” according to an email by Gerald Joyce, who co-chaired a Jason study group in June. A second Jason report was commissioned in 2017 assessing “potential threats this technology might pose in the hands of an adversary, technical obstacles that must be overcome to develop gene drive technology and employ it ‘in the wild’,” Joyce wrote.
The paper would not be publicly disclosed but “widely circulated within the US intelligence and broader national security community”, his email said.
https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/us-military-invests-in-doomsday-genetics-technology-my-main-worry-is-that-we-do-something-irreversible_12042017
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