By Brian Santo, contributing writer
Two years ago, DARPA established its Safe Genes program, assuming responsibility for determining the difference between what we can do with gene manipulation and what we should do — or perhaps, more to the point, should not do. The agency just announced the first research teams, most of them university-based, that will help it “support bio-innovation and combat bio-threats.”
DARPA has $65 million to spend on the program through the next four years.
DARPA’s announcement coincides with some astonishing news in genetic engineering. A research group has just demonstrated the ability to code video directly into DNA for playback and/or replication. Another has just figured out how to use synthetic DNA to build chromosomes. And the FDA appears ready to approve a gene therapy for the first time.
The techniques for sequencing, editing, and coding DNA have led to tremendous enthusiasm for pursuing all of those avenues for all sorts of applications, but the understanding of a mechanical process, ideally combined with good intentions, is not the same thing as full knowledge (or even a care) of what the consequences might be, intended or unintended. And of course, there is growing apprehension that these techniques can be deliberately misused for malign purposes.
One of the threats that DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) says it is concerned about is gene drives. A gene drive is genetic code deliberately biased for inheritance. Ordinarily, chances of inheriting any given gene are 50/50, but there are some genes that are naturally constructed in such a manner that they beat those odds. A gene drive takes advantage of the mechanisms that help those genes gain their inheritance bias. It’s easy to imagine a gene drive used to, for example, quickly spread a genetic resistance to a blight devastating a cash crop. It’s similarly easy to imagine a genetic modification having terrible unintended consequences as it spreads, or some malefactor deliberately introducing a disease or devastating deficiency into a population.
DARPA is envisioning multiple research avenues that could result in important tools that can not only support gene manipulation but reverse it if need be. It said, “Each of the seven teams will pursue one or more of three technical objectives: develop genetic constructs — biomolecular ‘instructions’ — that provide spatial, temporal, and reversible control of genome editors in living systems; devise new drug-based countermeasures that provide prophylactic and treatment options to limit genome editing in organisms and protect genome integrity in populations of organisms; and create a capability to eliminate unwanted engineered genes from systems and restore them to genetic baseline states.”
The first seven organizations that DARPA has designated to participate in Safe Genes are the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Harvard Medical School; Massachusetts General Hospital; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; North Carolina State University; University of California, Berkeley; and University of California, Riverside.
Some of the recent news involving DNA seems like the stuff of science fiction. Researchers have been captivated by the notion of gene therapy for so long, it’s almost a surprise to hear that we aren’t doing it already.
FDA appears ready to approve one or both of two proposed gene therapies , one intended as a treatment for a specific form of leukemia and the other to counteract an inherited disease that often leads to blindness.
Other recent advances are extraordinary. A group at NYU has used synthetic DNA to create a chromosome. The researchers intend to further develop the technique so that they can deliberately build new vaccines and drugs. Refined, the same technique could be used to create designer organisms, anything from a single-celled organism to a Klingon to something never seen in nature before.
Finally, another group has used the gene coding technique CRISPR-Cas to encode film in the DNA of bacteria. With a delightful appreciation of film history, the researchers chose to encode what many consider the first movie ever made, Eadweard Muybridge's 1878 film of a horse running. If you don’t need a thumb drive to download information, just a thumb, that brings up questions of what can be coded under what circumstances, legally or illegally, and what countermeasure there could possibly be.
Advertisement
Learn more about Electronic Products Magazine
