The Grassroots Future of Biohacking

An anonymous reader writes Forget about some kid engineering a virulent microbe in their bedroom. As the assistant director of the Maurice Kanbar Center for Biomedical Engineering, Oliver Medvedik, puts it, "It's extremely difficult to 'improve' on the lethality of nature. The pathogens that already exist are more legitimate cause for worry.” If anything, you're better off putting energy into wrenching away your desire for McDonalds, and making sure the government doesn't impose draconian laws about DIY-bio. Here's a look at the grassroots future of biohacking and the problems with government overreach.

Comments

Freeman Dyson

[NoImNotNineVolt]

I attended a talk given by Freeman Dyson roughly a decade ago. His opinion on the future of technology was clear: grassroots biohacking (I doubt that he called it that verbatim, but the concept was the same) would be the next Wild West of technology. Increasingly accessible tools would open up the world of genetic engineering to an entire generation just like the desktop computer opened up software development to curious kids. His opinion, if I remember correctly, was that the "government overreach" thing was a non-issue because of the inevitable ubiquity of such tools (much like "government overreach" limiting the availability of software development tools today seems impossible).

Re:Freeman Dyson

[mlts]

Problem is that it can be stomped out in the US and Europe with some quick fearmongering. "Home bio-terror labs" is a phrase some politician would throw around, that would get laws passed banning biohacking almost immediately.

Of course, this this type of thing can be very useful. For example, the article about bacteria being able to make propane. If someone was able to make bacteria that could, given sunlight, split water, it would spark a hydrogen economy revolution. Similar with critters that could filter heavy metals out of water, where said critters could be easily picked up and disposed of.

Of course, the fearmongering isn't all conjecture. Someone in theory could make a bug that could eat a vital building material or resins crucial to electronics could make a civilization failure similar to what was described in the Ringworld series with their room temperature superconductors.

Re:Freeman Dyson

[i kan reed]

Sure, all it needs is one major revolution and the objections I'm raising cease to be relevant. But there are more. Like most genes' positive observable effects occur during development and childhood. And hacking humans isn't like hacking code. There's huge ethical risks. And careful applications of science have been our best tool for identifying the health benefits and risks of changes.

And quacks making extraordinary claims will crop up, as they always do, if popular opinion reflects positively on genetic engineering. A regulated market is almost inevitable. Backyard/grassroots hacking is the opposite of what will happen.

Re:Freeman Dyson

[Scottingham]

Yes yes, but what about our bacteriome? Surely that is waay easier to genetically modify and have those modifications spread quickly throughout your body...

And if anything goes wrong, some antibiotics should help to clear up your mistake...hopefully.

Improving on the lethality of nature

[MobyDisk]

The statement "it’s extremely difficult to ‘improve’ on the lethality of nature" dodges the fact that one does not need to 'improve' it, one needs only 'combine' existing forms of lethality:

http://science.slashdot.org/st...

A scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison published an article in June revealing that he had taken genes from the deadly human 1918 Spanish Flu and inserted them into the H5N1 avian flu to make a new virus—one which was both far deadlier and far more capable of spreading

Overall, this article really is quite inspiring. I'm glad to know that creating deadly viruses is not yet available on the average home lab. It makes it sounds like home-hackers can make some really cool bacteria. It's like we are working toward a bio-arduino.

Re:Improving on the lethality of nature

[erice]

The statement "it’s extremely difficult to ‘improve’ on the lethality of nature" dodges the fact that one does not need to 'improve' it, one needs only 'combine' existing forms of lethality:

You don't even have to combine different forms of lethality, just combine lethality with ease of propagation. Airborne ebola, anyone?

Already cool, but has a bleak future...

[chihowa]

I'm a chemist, but I've had the opportunity to work with some of this to make customized proteins and cells to work with. It really is getting surprisingly easy and inexpensive to play around with this stuff and the range of what you can make is huge.

That said, I really see this going the same way as amateur chemistry and rocketry (and soon drones and 3D printing). The mere fact that it's possible to do something dangerous or disallowed means that the entire field is off-limits to amateurs. Any interest in it will be suspicious and used against you in your imminent trial, even if it's not technically illegal.

Nature has other objectives

[Opportunist]

There are of course natural entities that are lethal, but they are lethal as a by-product. No parasite, no virus, has the death of its host as its primary goal. Usually, the host dies from the unpleasant side effects of the parasite's primary goal: self preservation and propagation.

If you turn those objectives upside down (i.e. primary goal: Maximum damage, secondary goal: sustain existence) you sure as hell can increase the potential for lethal effects!