Entering 2020 the Coronavirus pandemic has taken a toll on the global population. Over the last few months, the virus has spread at a rapid rate, from Wuhan China to over 120 countries. Globally the virus infected more than 140,000 people while 5000 deaths have been confirmed. The virus, though it is highly contagious, has a death rate of 0.7 to 3.4 percent, a comparatively less-lethal rate than the ‘Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) with death rates of 30 and 10 percent. Like so, it is highly unlikely in the natural world that a virus would be extremely lethal, while at the same time be highly contagious. But what if there was a way to artificially craft or engineer an existing pathogen to become both lethal and contagious?

From WWI, Synthetic biology, a branch of science to redesign organisms for a specific purpose, has been on an exponential surge. During the war, the technology was used to redesign and modify viruses like anthrax, cholera and plague viruses to use as ‘biological weapons’. At that time of WWI scientists allegedly created enough viruses to wipe out the entire human population. Since then, a UN treaty was signed by 183 countries to prohibit the development, production, stockpiling and use of chemical/biological weapons after these weapons were considered as high-risk material even for the producers of the virus themselves.

After the war, synthetic biology has continued to advance, towards a direction that will positively provide society with curing diseases and climate change prevention. Unfortunately, the safety of synthetic biology has been questioned with the recurrence of unsettling events. In 2001, the Anthrax terror killed 5 people and infected 17 through infected letters mailed to victims' homes in regions of New York and Washington. It was secondary harm to the 911 terror that paralyzed citizens with fear. This event resurfaced the risks of biological weapons and raised red flags to the future of safe synthetic biology. Following the catastrophe in 2001, in 2002 the university of New York created a synthetic poliovirus without the use of organic material. This historical breakthrough made headlines on the news but many experts wondered how the complicated process of creating the virus was conducted in a university-level lab. It later turned out that the project was funded by DARPA, an agency within the US government. The event caused a major controversy as skeptics critiqued that this might be the blueprint for bioterrorism.

As time passes by and synthetic biology continues to develop, materials and complete genomic sequences of highly lethal viruses are inevitably easily accessible on the internet. More people are getting sophisticated education in this area of science and it is non-negotiable that if anyone had professional knowledge and has the malicious will to mass murder, the world at an instant may become a victim to perpetual damage. Although many countries have already signed the UN treaty to ban the development of biological weapons, based on the characteristics of the treaty it doesn’t have a surveillance system to monitor these countries, and it has been confirmed that there are still areas in the world that produce and study biological weapons. The view is blurry as to the future of synthetic biology, however, it is certain that as much positive effect this synthetic biology could bring, a reasonable solution to prevent threats of biological terror should be equated before it is too late. 

배진아 강남포스트 학생기자  webmaster@ignnews.kr

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