Kevin Esvelt
Biologist at the MIT Media Lab; invented CRISPR gene drives and then spent years arguing for safeguards against their misuse and against engineered pandemics.
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Where they publish
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 6 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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Recent
The tools that make biology powerful for medicine are the same tools that make it dangerous, so the benefits and the misuse risk cannot be separated.
Our experiment demonstrates that the immense potential benefits of biotechnology are profoundly vulnerable to misuse.
It shouldn't be easy to buy synthetic DNA fragments to recreate the 1918 flu virus Said 8 May 2024
Ordering the synthetic DNA needed to rebuild the 1918 influenza virus is surprisingly easy, even from companies that screen customers' orders.
It should be hard — exceedingly hard — to obtain the synthetic DNA needed to recreate the virus that caused the deadly 1918 influenza pandemic without authorization. But my lab found that it’s surprisingly easy, even when ordering gene fragments from companies that check customers’ orders to detect hazardous sequences.
It shouldn't be easy to buy synthetic DNA fragments to recreate the 1918 flu virus Said 8 May 2024
The genome sequences of pandemic viruses and the protocols for building them from synthetic DNA are already freely available online.
Both the genome sequences of pandemic viruses and step-by-step protocols to make infectious samples from synthetic DNA are now freely available online.
It shouldn't be easy to buy synthetic DNA fragments to recreate the 1918 flu virus Said 8 May 2024
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Every synthetic DNA order should be screened for hazardous sequences and shipped only to researchers whose work a biosafety authority has approved.
That makes it essential to ensure that all synthetic DNA orders are screened to determine whether they contain hazardous sequences, which should be shipped only to legitimate researchers whose work has been approved by a biosafety authority.
It shouldn't be easy to buy synthetic DNA fragments to recreate the 1918 flu virus Said 8 May 2024
Research programmes that identify or create pandemic-capable viruses teach the world how to make them, and should stop.
But perhaps the biggest question of all isn’t being asked insistently enough: Why is anyone trying to teach the world how to make viruses that could kill millions of people?
Opinion: Manipulating viruses and risking pandemics is too dangerous. It's time to stop. Said 6 Oct 2021
The spread of pandemic-capable biology should be treated as a matter of international security, in the way nuclear physics is.
Like nuclear physics, with its potential for global catastrophe when put to destructive ends, the proliferation of pandemic biology ought to be considered a matter of international security.
Opinion: Manipulating viruses and risking pandemics is too dangerous. It's time to stop. Said 6 Oct 2021
Beliefs others hold too
The tools that make biology powerful for medicine are the same tools that make it dangerous, so the benefits and the misuse risk cannot be separated. 2 hold this
Our experiment demonstrates that the immense potential benefits of biotechnology are profoundly vulnerable to misuse.
It shouldn't be easy to buy synthetic DNA fragments to recreate the 1918 flu virus Said 8 May 2024
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