{"id":531088,"date":"2018-10-05T07:47:21","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T11:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?guid=e3c8f3813166b279307f9392dcb5b5e2"},"modified":"2018-10-05T07:47:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T11:47:21","slug":"cryptography-techniques-to-screen-synthetic-dna-could-help-prevent-the-creation-of-dangerous-pathogens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=531088","title":{"rendered":"Cryptography techniques to screen synthetic DNA could help prevent the creation of dangerous pathogens"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, synthetic biologists reconstructed a possibly extinct disease, known as horsepox, using mail-order DNA for around $100,000. The experiment was strictly for research purposes, and the disease itself is harmless to humans. But the published results, including the methodology, raised concerns that a nefarious agent, given appropriate resources, could engineer a pandemic. In an op-ed published today in PLOS Pathogens, Media Lab Professor Kevin Esvelt, who develops and studies gene-editing techniques, argues for tighter biosecurity and greater research transparency to keep such &#8220;information hazards&#8221;\u2014published information that could be used to cause harm\u2014in check. Esvelt spoke with MIT News about his ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2016, synthetic biologists reconstructed a possibly extinct disease, known as horsepox, using mail-order DNA for around $100,000. The experiment was strictly for research purposes, and the disease itself is harmless to humans. But the published results, including the methodology, raised concerns that a nefarious agent, given appropriate resources, could engineer a pandemic. In an op-ed published today in PLOS Pathogens, Media Lab Professor Kevin Esvelt, who develops and studies gene-editing techniques, argues for tighter biosecurity and greater research transparency to keep such &#8220;information hazards&#8221;&mdash;published information that could be used to cause harm&mdash;in check. Esvelt spoke with MIT News about his ideas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":615444,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-531088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=531088"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":531089,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531088\/revisions\/531089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/615444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=531088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=531088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=531088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}