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Engineered Microbes Pose New Bioterror Threat
Rapid advances in microbe engineering that could new biological weapons are outstripping U.S. efforts to prevent bioterrorism, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, June 29, 2005). Diseases could be overcome and lives saved through new technologies now under study in hundreds of laboratories around the world. However, they also could be used to increase the lethality of pathogens or restore early strains such as the 1918 influenza. The technologies could also be used to improve ways to widely deliver disease agents. “The biological weapons threat is multiplying and will do so regardless of the countermeasures we try to take,” said Steven Block, a Stanford University biophysicist and former president of the Biophysical Society. “You can’t stop it, any more than you can stop the progress of mankind. You just have to hope that your collective brainpower can muster more resources than your adversaries’.” The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to date has not moved to monitor the expanding gene-synthesis industry. The supervision of controversial experiments is voluntary and irregular at universities and private laboratories in the United States, and even more rare internationally, the Post reported. Conventional biodefense practices such as stockpiling antibiotics or controlling strains of known fatal diseases are still important, but more efforts are necessary, bioterrorism experts said. “There’s a name for fixed defenses that can easily be outflanked: They are called Maginot lines,” said molecular biologist Roger Brent, a former biodefense adviser to the Defense Department. “By themselves, stockpiled defenses against specific threats will be no more effective to the defense of the United States than the Maginot line was to the defense of France in 1940.” The development of biotechnology has been compared to the start of the nuclear age. Analysts, however, noted important differences. Rather than seeing a U.S. monopoly on such advances, there are dozens of nations conducting this work, the Post reported. No treaty or oversight agency exists to prevent abuse of this work, and biological secrets can be obtained for free over the Internet, said Robert Erwin, a geneticist and founder of Large Scale Biology Corp “It’s too cheap, it’s too fast, there are too many people who know too much, and it’s too late to stop it,” Erwin said at a recent forum in Washington. The threat comes not only from exotic diseases. Modifications to harmless bacteria that enter a body could change normal functions such as immunity or hormone production, according to “Biotechnology: Impact on Biological Warfare and Biodefense” a report authored by three biodefense experts with the Defense Intelligence Agency. There have been no recorded bioterrorism incidents involving engineered microbes, though experiments on genetically altered strains occurred late in the Cold War in the Soviet Union. Some experts say terrorists are still more likely to use ordinary germs that could produce the same deadly effect. “The capability of terrorists to embark on this path in the near- to mid-term is judged to be low,” Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer for the Homeland Security Department, told the House Homeland Security Committee on May 4. “Just because the technology is available doesn’t mean terrorists can or will use it.” More dangerous perhaps is a “lone wolf” scientist or biological hacker — working alone or in a small group — motivated by ideology or personal issues, Allen said. “All it would take for advanced bioweapons development is one skilled scientist and modest equipment — an activity we are unlikely to detect in advance,” he said. The U.S. federal “Select Agent” rule restricts access to select deadly bacteria, viruses and toxins. However, there are few CDC restrictions on transfers of synthetic genes that could be made into lethal bioterrorism agents, according to the Post. Modifications are being considered, but the lapse is an example of technology growing beyond law and policy. “It would be possible — fully legal — for a person to produce full-length 1918 influenza virus or Ebola virus genomes, along with kits containing detailed procedures and all other materials for reconstitution,” said Richard Ebright, a Rutgers University biochemist and bioterrorism expert. “It is also possible to advertise and to sell the product, in the United States or overseas.” Some scientists favor more oversight, or even peer review to impede the accidental or deliberate release of genetically modified organisms. The National Institutes of Health has set guidelines to commission volunteer institutional biosafety committees for federally funded schools and private laboratories. A 2004 National Academy of Sciences report urged the committees to expand their oversight efforts of research that could produce more lethal biological agents, the Post reported (see GSN, Sept. 10, 2004). In many cases, the committees are only theoretical bodies. The nonprofit Sunshine Project in 2004 requested meeting minutes or notes evaluating research projects from 390 committees. Only 15 of those institutions showed full compliance with NIH guidelines, said survey director Edward Hammond. About 200 had poor or missing records, or had none at all, while some committees had not actually met. New techniques and research in microbes could help overcome bioterrorism threats and cure natural diseases, but the search for new drugs is slow. Five years after Sept. 11, the government sets aside nearly $8 billion a year for civilian biodefense. Billions more have been spent to develop, purchase and stockpile new drugs, primarily related to identified bioterrorism threats such as anthrax. While efforts are being made to make the system more efficient, the development of one new drug could take up to 10 years and cost hundreds of million of dollars. If proven successful, the drug would treat only one of many illnesses on a growing list of bioterrorism threats (Joby Warrick, Washington Post, July 31).
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