Biowar-Scientists Fear Miracle of
Biotech Could Also Breed a Monster

Published on Tuesday, October 23, 2001 by Agence France Presse

Scientists Fear Miracle of Biotech Could Also Breed a Monster

PARIS -- The events of the past six weeks have led some biologists to fear
that mankind's fast-growing store of genetic knowledge may be less of a
treasure chest than a Pandora's box.

By tweaking bacterial and viral DNA, a gene terrorist could create an agent
far more devastating than the bugs featuring in the post-September 11
anthrax attacks.

Efforts to build a tough verification protocol to the 1972 Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) have been blocked for years -- ironically,
by the United States, which said the secrets of its pharmaceutical industry
could be at risk from intrusion. Negotiations resume in Geneva in November.

Among the nightmares: antibiotic-resistant strains of plague, tuberculosis
and intestinal germs; a genetically-modified killer flu; and pathogen
"cocktails," such as a mixture of smallpox and Ebola.

"In light of the September 11 tragedy, we can no longer afford to be
complacent about the possibility of biological terrorism," warns a
commentary published next month in the specialist journal Nature Genetics.

"The revolution in biology could be misused in offensive biological weapons
programs, directed against human beings and their staple crops and
livestock."

The 20th century saw seven countries by known count -- Britain, France,
Germany, Iraq, Japan, the Soviet Union and the United States -- embark on
programs to identify, manufacture and weaponize killer agents.

But experts worry the next generation of these weapons will exploit
knowledge about the genome, with calamitous effect.

A couple of years from now, there may be as many as 70 pathogens whose
genetic code has been cracked. The genome of cholera, leprosy, the plague
and tuberculosis are already in the public domain, as is a food-poisoning
bug, Staphylococcus aureus, that is becoming resistant to antibiotics.

DNA sequencing aims to encourage research into new drugs that prevent, block
or reverse those diseases -- potentially, the greatest leap forward in
medical history.

But there is also fear that a bioterrorist with an advanced college degree,
lots of money and a good laboratory could use this readily-available data,
inserting or swapping genes in bacteria and viruses to create new,
horrifyingly virulent agents.

These fears pre-date the current anthrax alert.

"Progress in biomedical science inevitably has a dark side, and potentiates
the development of an entirely new class of weapons of mass destruction:
genetically engineered pathogens," a US scientific thinktank, the JASON
Group, warned in the late 1990s.

These arms pose "extraordinary challenges for detection, mitigation and
remediation."

There is no known risk of any such attack at present.

But the potential for one certainly exists. Indeed, there are at least two
documented cases in which biologists have accidentally created a doomsday
bug.

One was a strain of the common intestinal bug Escherichia coli that was
32,000 times more resistant to the antibiotic cefotaxime than conventional
strains.

The superbug's creator was Willem Stemmer, chief scientist with Maxygen, a
California pharmaceutical research firm, who was exploring the function of
resistance genes in bacteria.

He destroyed his invention in response to an appeal by the American Society
for Microbiology.

In a case published last January, a pair of Australian scientists, Ron
Jackson and Ian Ramshaw, unwitting created a vicious strain of mousepox, a
cousin of smallpox, among laboratory mice.

They, too, destroyed the virus and then went public with their findings to
draw attention to the potential abuse of biotechnology.

If a new infectious weapon were unleashed, little could be done other than
identify new cases and isolate them, itself a huge task in today's open,
mobile society.

Claire Fraser, who works at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in
Rockville, Maryland, and Malcolm Dando, a peace studies expert at Britain's
Bradford University, say in the Nature Genetics commentary that the picture
is not entirely gloomy.

"The same advances in microbial genomics that could be used to produce
bioweapons can also be used to set up countermeasures against them," they
say.

One early advance could be a DNA chip capable of spotting any biowarfare
agents, even if they contained genes slotted in from other species, thus
providing early warning of an attack.

And fast-growing knowledge about the genome and cell functions could help
tailor new vaccines and antibiotics, although such drugs typically need
several years of safety testing before being authorized for public use.

International cooperation and ethics training of civilian biologists are
vital for strengthening the safeguards against bioterrorism, some say.

Efforts to build a tough verification protocol to the 1972 Biological and
Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC) have been blocked for years -- ironically,
by the United States, which said the secrets of its pharmaceutical industry
could be at risk from intrusion. Negotiations resume in Geneva in November.

As for action by scientists themselves, some voices are calling for tougher
vetting of research proposals and a greater effort to train students about
potential dangers arising from civilian lab work.

"It's time for biologists to begin asking what means we have to keep the
technology from being used in subverted ways," says Harvard University
molecular biologist Matthew Meselson.