What If Someone Uses This DIY CRISPR Kit To Make Mutant Bacteria? (vice.com)

Josiah Zayner, a research fellow at NASA Ames Research Center, is running an Indiegogo campaign to make DIY gene editing kits that use the CRISPR technique to modify DNA. The campaign has already exceeded its goal, and he points out an article at Motherboard noting the controversy surrounding cheap, DIY genetic modification. Quoting:The kits won't going to allow people to genetically modify humans, but Zayner is still getting some heat for the project. One medical doctor emailed him with "grave concerns" about putting the technology in the hands of lay people. "Reprogramming bacteria or fungi could have serious ramifications, such as inadvertent or intended multi-drug resistance, faster multiplication, toxin production, and persisting potency when aerosolized," the doctor wrote. ... There is no legal framework surrounding this at-home work, unless it results in a product to be distributed, said Todd Kuiken, a senior program associate with the Synthetic Biology Project at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "Who actually uses kits like these and what they are using them for will determine if any of these products they make would be regulated or not," he said.

Comments

Re: doesn't even necessariy require much skill

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike a million trillion trillion bacteria mutating constantly?

Non-Problem

[OverlordQ]

If people were going to weaponize bacteria, they wouldn't have needed to wait until an Indiegogo campaign made a DIY kit.

Re:Non-Problem

[Idou]

I don't think you realize how new and upcoming CRISPR is. . . before we just had a million monkeys. . . now we are about to give those monkeys typewriters. . .

Million experiments

[DrYak]

A million monkeys poking at a million CRISPR kits could have some interesting results.

Funny like 999'999 dead bacteria colonies,
And 1 bacteria colony which produces a funny color fluorescent protein ?
(That monkey got lucky, managed not to screw anything, and started not too ambitious and beyond his own capabilities).

Hint:
- producing functionality in DNA (as opposed just random garbage DNA sequences) requires skills and expertise
- those who have the above skills and expertise already have access to the necessary facilities anyway.

This kit won't suddenly enable a mad scientist to create their zombie plague.
It's not targeted at mad scientist. (The mad scientist has all they need in the lab)

It could be better targeted at high-school students and enthousiats: It would be better suited to help a nice science fair project (glow in the dark bacteria colonies).

Complaining that a DIY CRISPR Kit will bring a bio-hasard end of the world, is like complaining that cheap Arduinos and Raspberry Pis put into the wrong hands could bring a singularity level evil AI.

And like the other anonymous has mentionned:
bacteria do mutate a hell lot in the wild anyway.
They are way much more likely to acquire antibiotics resistance by swaping genes around and mutating/evolving in a antibiotics rich environment, than by the result of some under-qualified enthusiast poking around.