Synthetic Biology, Genome Editing, and the Risk of Bioterrorism

The view of synthetic biology in the field of ethics: a thematic systematic review

Synthetic biology is designing and creating biological tools and systems for useful purposes. It uses knowledge from biology, such as biotechnology, molecular biology, biophysics, biochemistry, bioinformatics, and other disciplines, such as engineering, mathematics, computer science, and electrical engineering. It is recognized as both a branch of science and technology. The scope of synthetic biology ranges from modifying existing organisms to gain new properties to creating a living organism from non-living components. Synthetic biology has many applications in important fields such as energy, chemistry, medicine, environment, agriculture, national security, and nanotechnology. The development of synthetic biology also raises ethical and social debates. This article aims to identify the place of ethics in synthetic biology. In this context, the theoretical ethical debates on synthetic biology from the 2000s to 2020, when the development of synthetic biology was relatively faster, were analyzed using the systematic review method. Based on the results of the analysis, the main ethical problems related to the field, problems that are likely to arise, and suggestions for solutions to these problems are included. The data collection phase of the study included a literature review conducted according to protocols, including planning, screening, selection and evaluation. The analysis and synthesis process was carried out in the next stage, and the main themes related to synthetic biology and ethics were identified. Searches were conducted in Web of Science, Scopus, PhilPapers and MEDLINE databases. Theoretical research articles and reviews published in peer-reviewed journals until the end of 2020 were included in the study. The language of publications was English. According to preliminary data, 1,453 publications were retrieved from the four databases. Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 58 publications were analyzed in the study. Ethical debates on synthetic biology have been conducted on various issues. In this context, the ethical debates in this article were examined under five themes: the moral status of synthetic biology products, synthetic biology and the meaning of life, synthetic biology and metaphors, synthetic biology and knowledge, and expectations, concerns, and problem solving: risk versus caution.

Comparison of nine extraction methods for bacterial identification using the ONT MinION sequencer

The Anthrax mailings bioterrorism attack in 2001 revealed the need for universal and rapid microbial forensic analyses on unknown biological evidence. However, the gold standard for bacterial identification includes culturing isolates, which is laborious. Molecular approaches for bacterial identification revolve around 16S ribosomal gene sequencing using Sanger or next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms, but these techniques are laboratory-based and can also be time-consuming. The Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT) MinION sequencer can generate long read lengths that span the entire bacterial 16S rRNA gene and accurately identify the species level. This platform can be used in the field, allowing on-site evidence analysis. However, it requires higher quantities of pure DNA compared to other sequencing platforms; thus, the extraction method for bacterial DNA is critical for downstream analysis, which to date are tailored toward a priori knowledge of the species' taxonomic grouping. During an attack, the investigative team may not know what species they are handling; therefore, identifying an extraction method that can handle all bacterial groups and generate clean DNA for the MinION is useful for microbial forensic analysis. The purpose of this study was to identify a "universal" extraction method that can be coupled with ONT MinION sequencing for use in forensic situations for rapid identification. It also evaluated the cloud-based data analysis software provided by ONT, EPI2ME. No "universal" extraction method was identified as optimal for downstream MinION sequencing. However, the DNeasy PowerSoil Kit and Noda et al. Chelex-100 method gave comparable sequencing results and could be used as rapid extraction techniques. This study showed that the ONT 16S Barcoding Kit 1-24 coupled with the 16S FASTQ workflow might not be the best for use in forensic situations where species-level identification needs to be obtained, as most alignments were approximately 89% accurate. In all seven test organisms and nine extraction methods, accurate species identification was only obtained in 63% of the cases.

Modelling genetic stability in engineered cell populations

Predicting the evolution of engineered cell populations is a highly sought-after goal in biotechnology. While models of evolutionary dynamics are far from new, their application to synthetic systems is scarce where the vast combination of genetic parts and regulatory elements creates a unique challenge. To address this gap, we here-in present a framework that allows one to connect the DNA design of varied genetic devices with mutation spread in a growing cell population. Users can specify the functional parts of their system and the degree of mutation heterogeneity to explore, after which our model generates host-aware transition dynamics between different mutation phenotypes over time. We show how our framework can be used to generate insightful hypotheses across broad applications, from how a device's components can be tweaked to optimise long-term protein yield and genetic shelf life, to generating new design paradigms for gene regulatory networks that improve their functionality.

Overstatements and Understatements in the Debate on Synthetic Biology, Bioterrorism and Ethics

Synthetic biology has many valuable applications, but it also gives rise to certain risks. In this paper I discuss the risk of bioterrorism, which often attracts attention in both the mass media and scientific debate, as well as in government reports. While some authors argue that there is a significant risk of bioterrorism connected to synthetic biology, other scholars claim that the risk is exaggerated and that actors often have motives for overstating the risk. In this paper, I argue that some estimates of the risk may be overstated but that certain risks of bioterrorism, such as the creation and spread of known pathogenic viruses, need to be taken seriously. Actors may also have scientific and financial motives for understating the risk. Such understatements are sometimes based on a principle of hope, which says that technological progress is important for the future welfare of humanity and that too much precaution would have bad consequences. I argue that this principle is problematic as the burdens and benefits of synthetic biology may not be equally divided between different social groups. Instead, I claim that the principle of precaution is more justified as a point of departure for assessing advancements within synthetic biology. It tells us that we need strong evidence that such advancements are safe, because there is a potential risk that they may make it easier for terrorist groups to create and spread known pathogenic viruses.

Who Should We Fear More: Biohackers, Disgruntled Postdocs, or Bad Governments? A Simple Risk Chain Model of Biorisk

The biological risk landscape continues to evolve as developments in synthetic biology and biotechnology offer increasingly powerful tools to a widening pool of actors, including those who may consider carrying out a deliberate biological attack. However, it remains unclear whether it is the relatively large numbers of low-resourced actors or the small handful of high-powered actors who pose a greater biosecurity risk. To answer this question, this paper introduces a simple risk chain model of biorisk, from actor intent to a biological event, where the actor can successfully pass through each of N steps. Assuming that actor success probability at each independent step is sigmoidally distributed and actor power follows a power-law distribution, if a biorisk event were to occur, this model shows that the expected perpetrator would likely be highly powered, despite lower-powered actors being far more numerous. However, as the number of necessary steps leading to a biological release scenario decreases, lower-powered actors can quickly overtake more powerful actors as the likely source of a given event. If steps in the risk chain are of unequal difficulty, this model shows that actors are primarily limited by the most difficult step. These results have implications for biosecurity risk assessment and health security strengthening initiatives and highlight the need to consider actor power and ensure that the steps leading to a biorisk event are sufficiently difficult and not easily bypassed.

The ethics of genome editing in non-human animals: a systematic review of reasons reported in the academic literature

In recent years, new genome editing technologies have emerged that can edit the genome of non-human animals with progressively increasing efficiency. Despite ongoing academic debate about the ethical implications of these technologies, no comprehensive overview of this debate exists. To address this gap in the literature, we conducted a systematic review of the reasons reported in the academic literature for and against the development and use of genome editing technologies in animals. Most included articles were written by academics from the biomedical or animal sciences. The reported reasons related to seven themes: human health, efficiency, risks and uncertainty, animal welfare, animal dignity, environmental considerations and public acceptability. Our findings illuminate several key considerations about the academic debate, including a low disciplinary diversity in the contributing academics, a scarcity of systematic comparisons of potential consequences of using these technologies, an underrepresentation of animal interests, and a disjunction between the public and academic debate on this topic. As such, this article can be considered a call for a broad range of academics to get increasingly involved in the discussion about genome editing, to incorporate animal interests and systematic comparisons, and to further discuss the aims and methods of public involvement. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue 'The ecology and evolution of prokaryotic CRISPR-Cas adaptive immune systems'.

A quantitative risk assessment method for synthetic biology products in the environment

The need to prevent possible adverse environmental health impacts resulting from synthetic biology (SynBio) products is widely acknowledged in both the SynBio risk literature and the global regulatory community. To-date, however, discussions of potential risks of SynBio products have been largely speculative, and the limited attempts to characterize the risks of SynBio products have been non-uniform and entirely qualitative. As the SynBio discipline continues to accelerate and bring forth novel, highly-engineered life forms, a standardized risk assessment framework will become critical for ensuring that the environmental risks of these products are characterized in a consistent, reliable, and objective manner that incorporates all SynBio-unique risk factors. In their current forms, established risk assessment frameworks - including those that address traditional genetically modified organisms - fall short of the features required of this standard framework. To address this gap, we propose the Quantitative Risk Assessment Method for Synthetic Biology Products (QRA-SynBio) - an incremental build on established risk assessment methodologies that supplements traditional paradigms with the SynBio risk factors that are currently absent, and necessitates quantitative analysis for more transparent and objective risk characterizations. We demonstrate through a hypothetical case study that the proposed framework facilitates defensible quantification of the environmental risks of SynBio products in both foreseeable and hypothetical use scenarios. Additionally, we show how the quantitative nature of the proposed method can promote increased experimental investigation into the true likelihood of hazard and exposure parameters and highlight the most sensitive parameters where uncertainty should be reduced, ultimately leading to more targeted SynBio risk research and yielding more precise characterizations of risk.