That phrasing I disagree with. As Noam Chomsky said, this generation has to decide whether there will be organized human life on the planet in the future (similar to something we would not find a nightmare, that is) or not. I would claim mere waiting would be making a decision against future human life.
"Kids will use CRISPR, and the even better tools coming through now, to fuck shit up, because that’s what kids do...My guess is, a lot of kids and terrorists are going to accidentally injure or kill themselves with their home-made superbug, long before they get a chance to spread it." No expert but this sounds like pure fantasy.
I used to work at the JGI[1]. As we were technically part of the DOE, we were occasionally accused of being a "bioweapon lab" and other evidence-free conspiracy theories. We were a high-throughput sequencing lab; experimental research and development of anything was well outside our capabilities. (almost all of or lab space was related to keeping our (Sanger) sequencers running nonstop) Most of the staff thought idea that we were making bioweapons was hilariously misinformed.
Well, some of us stopped laughing when we accidentally created a "superbug". We used a lot of agar plates to clone DNA plasmids with E. coli. The plates were filled by hand at an agar dispenser, which resulted in a very small amount of splashing of agar onto the counter next to the dispenser. This was carefully cleaned every day, but.... nobody remember to clean underneath the dispenser* where an imperceptibly small amount of indirectly splashed agar started to accumulate. This agar had ampicillin in it to stop other bacteria from growing.
Eventually, this repeated depositing of bacterial growth medium and an antibiotic created a particularly nasty resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus. The person that eventually discovered the problem and cleaned up the agar underneath the dispenser ended up hospitalized on an IV of one of the "antibiotics of last resort".
Are kids or terrorists going to use CRISPR or other genetic engineering tools to intentionally create their own weaponized superbug? That seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Are they going to accidentally create a superbug that was just as damaging? Yes, they absolutely will, because I've already seen it happen with people that did have the necessary training sand expertise[2].
[2] No offense intended to the good people at the JGI! This was a very human mistake that the lab learned from; changes were implemented immediately to prevent this type of problem from ever happening again.
[*] Speaking of problems at that lab, we were fined (correctly) by OSHA for storing the H2O2 alphabetically,,, next to hydrazine.
Thank you for the story, I find this fascinating! I’m really surprised how easy it was to accidentally grow this. Is this a 1/(very high number) chance occurrence or is it a somewhat normal happening if proper steps aren’t taken to clean?
Growing a resistant strain was more or less guaranteed, because we were effectively creating the ideal evolutionary pressure: an ideal growing medium that strongly favors any additional resistance to ampicillin. It's the same as why doctors remind you to finish any prescription of antibiotics even if you feel better early. It's basic survival of the fittest, where we're strongly defining what "fittest" means.
>> ...and smart critics like Cherian George get pushed out, which is terrible, because he’s exactly the kind of guy Singapore needs — someone born in Singapore, who is aware of the system’s virtues, but who can gently point out the flaws. (Read his The Air-Conditioned Nation, and Singapore, Incomplete for the best overview of the country.)
11 comments
[ 1.9 ms ] story [ 30.9 ms ] threadHe's talking about his new book, which seems interesting.
That phrasing I disagree with. As Noam Chomsky said, this generation has to decide whether there will be organized human life on the planet in the future (similar to something we would not find a nightmare, that is) or not. I would claim mere waiting would be making a decision against future human life.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/diy-crispr-kits-learn-mod...
For that matter the IA speculations in the interview are perhaps even more exaggerated.
Well, some of us stopped laughing when we accidentally created a "superbug". We used a lot of agar plates to clone DNA plasmids with E. coli. The plates were filled by hand at an agar dispenser, which resulted in a very small amount of splashing of agar onto the counter next to the dispenser. This was carefully cleaned every day, but.... nobody remember to clean underneath the dispenser* where an imperceptibly small amount of indirectly splashed agar started to accumulate. This agar had ampicillin in it to stop other bacteria from growing.
Eventually, this repeated depositing of bacterial growth medium and an antibiotic created a particularly nasty resistant strain of Staphylococcus aureus. The person that eventually discovered the problem and cleaned up the agar underneath the dispenser ended up hospitalized on an IV of one of the "antibiotics of last resort".
Are kids or terrorists going to use CRISPR or other genetic engineering tools to intentionally create their own weaponized superbug? That seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. Are they going to accidentally create a superbug that was just as damaging? Yes, they absolutely will, because I've already seen it happen with people that did have the necessary training sand expertise[2].
[1] https://jgi.doe.gov/
[2] No offense intended to the good people at the JGI! This was a very human mistake that the lab learned from; changes were implemented immediately to prevent this type of problem from ever happening again.
[*] Speaking of problems at that lab, we were fined (correctly) by OSHA for storing the H2O2 alphabetically,,, next to hydrazine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimicrobial_resistance
https://www.cheriangeorge.net/