Talk:Lecture 9

Altin Dastmalchi, UCB So if i understood correctly from tonights lecture, the CW/RW threat is possible within our boarders. And the rate of clean up is relatively quick. But the question i wonder is why arent citizens and/or the Govt. doing more to ensure our safety if something was to break out. (ie raise awareness)... The second lecturer mentioned that water is a good method because it helps dilute it from your body. Now i want to know how many people in the US would know usefull information like that?

Synthetic Biology => Computer Viruses

Chris Fleizach - J. Keasling and others raised the obvious point that a synthetic biological agent is like a computer virus in a way (what isn't compared to computers these days?) In synthetic biology, the goal is to create small building blocks whose function is already known, put them together to achieve a more powerful, deterministic, interaction. Viruses (and all programs) also have small basic building blocks, instructions, that when you combine them together can form very powerful programs. This led me to think about how to protect against synthetic biological agents, which could also be analogous to anti-virus programs. It seems like you can create your own synthetic object that can pattern match a bad DNA sequence (anthrax, smallpox), then when the pattern matches, instruct it to destroy that object. Molecular computing is all about using DNA to match patterns, but mostly to solve computer problems. Surely, these methods can be applied to other fields.

Keasling then raised another point when he said it is possible to fool these DNA synthesis companies if you can re-order your sequences, which sounds a lot like a polymorphic virus in a way (it also sounds like DNA mutation, too). Virus scanners have, for the most part, succeeded in defeating polymorphic code through pattern analysis and other ideas. The advantage, I imagine, in biology, is that you can only change things around so much before they just don't do the same things anymore, perhaps invalidating the original, evil, goal. Whats the timeline on synthetic virus creator and a DNA virus scanner? Well the ebay prices were still too much for me.

Uranium for sale

Chris Fleizach - Christine L. Hartmann-Siantar, in her talk, brought up the story of a Turkish citizen, stopped at the Bulgarian border in 1999, with possession of a small vial of enriched uranium. It seemed she felt more secure because old-fashioned police work had managed to apprehend the criminal where newer detection devices would probably have failed. What I think is more frightening is that a nervous man was willing to offer a $10,000USD bribe in a vain attempt to get away. If bumbling, part-time smugglers are able to obtain enriched uranium, then certainly there are professionals who are into the game and moving much larger quantities of the materials. The fact that this man was stopped was due only to luck and his own incompetence. The number of other cases that have gone undetected must be larger by an order of several magnitudes. Which points to the ever greater need for automatic devices which can detect nuclear material. The past few lectures have all driven home the point that nuclear weapons, more so than radiological, biological and chemical, pose the greatest threat of all. Unfortunately, as it was also pointed out, it is quite difficult to build such a machine, which means the government needs to step in with a large infusion of cash. Has anyone mentioned the budget used for research into detection yet?

A nonproliferation treaty for synthetic biology?

Yi-Kai - As was pointed out last night, synthetic biology is a tool with great promise and great dangers. So I wonder if governments and corporations that want this tool would be willing to make a bargain: agree not to pursue harmful work (such as bioweapons), and in return, receive assistance in using synthetic biology for therapeutic purposes (such as pharmaceuticals). This is the same basic idea that underlies the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Furthermore, anyone who agrees to this deal would have to undergo intrusive inspections, done by an international agency similar to the IAEA.

There are some problems with this approach. First, it's not clear that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty really works that well. Nations that want nukes simply don't sign the treaty. Second, for synthetic biology, it's harder to verify compliance with a treaty. Unlike nuclear energy, synthetic biology doesn't require a large industrial base, and it's harder to distinguish between "good" and "bad" uses. So an international monitoring agency may not be enough; we may need to rely on governments to keep watch of what goes on inside their borders. We may end up cooperating with other countries to help them comply with the treaty.