
Mail-Order CRISPR Kits Allow Anyone to Hack DNA - G8WyaX
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mail-order-crispr-kits-allow-absolutely-anyone-to-hack-dna/
======
kanzure
Here's a transcript of a recent talk given by Josiah Zayner:
[http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/diy-human-gene-therapy-
wit...](http://diyhpl.us/wiki/transcripts/diy-human-gene-therapy-with-crispr/)

[20:40] “If you look at Step 3 - which is, uh, you know, I like steps and
lists, they are awesome - uhm, there are actually websites out there that have
this infrastructure completely built. You can go in, type in the name of a
gene. Not even the name, you could type in the name you think a gene should be
named, and what it will do is predict the best guide RNAs, the best 20 bases,
to use, so that Cas9 enzyme can cut in your genome in this exact place."

"Literally, you don’t have to do anything, right? You have to go in, type in
the name of a gene, and press enter, and you could modify yourself with
CRISPR. Right? That’s what this DNA basically is. This DNA, if you think
about, took me about 5 minutes to make. Actually, it happened so fast, I had
to go back and verify it a couple of times. I didn’t think I could create DNA
that could modify my own genetics with CRISPR in 5 minutes. Now, if that
doesn’t blow your mind, I, I really don’t know what does. And, the next
question comes down to, 'What’s holding us back; what’s stopping us?' And I
dunno, to me, I, I don’t really know what’s stopping us, you know? I, I think
about it a lot, because, I have this really, you know, bad snaggle-tooth, and
I think like what happens if I could change that?"

"No but if you think about, people are born with things that they have no
decision over. And then everybody else says, 'Oh, no, fuck you, I'm athletic
and 6 feet tall and, you know, good looking, and you just, you just, the
genetic lottery - you lost. That's the truth. You lost the genetic lottery and
you have to suffer through it.' How does it make sense?"

[http://www.the-odin.com/diyhumancrispr](http://www.the-
odin.com/diyhumancrispr)

personally i'm down to fund projects like this, so if any of you are
interested, get in touch & let's deploy.

~~~
ben_w
Back in the days of Mac OS classic, there was a tool called ResEdit. You could
use it to explore and modify apps. Or the core OS. While it was running.

It warned you this was a bad idea, but I did it anyway. It took ten years
before I saw a computer lock up that hard again.

That’s how I see humans DIY hacking their own genome. If you’re _lucky_ you’ll
get what you were after. If not, you now have sexuality transmissible
lycanthropy which (as a side effect) lobotomies you as your new skull shape
was designed by an artist and not a biologist.

~~~
maratd
> If you’re lucky you’ll get what you were after.

No, if you're lucky, nothing happens. The majority of the other alternatives
are just death.

Just imagine a complex codebase and then you start changing parts of it
randomly. What are you going to get? Either nothing or more likely, some sort
of a crash which in biology means death.

What's the probability that you'll get a feature or fix a bug doing that?
Almost 0.

~~~
dTal
What about a complex codebase with nearly 8 billion subtly different running
copies? Your copy has a bug, so you find a copy that doesn't and monkey-patch
the assembly. Have you fixed the bug? Unless it was in some initialization
code that won't get run again, your odds are pretty good.

A lot of genetic disorders are simply "whoops, your gene for X
protein/enzyme/whatever is corrupted". I'd sure be tempted to patch that in
myself.

------
ilamont
_Finally, what about the nightmare scenario: Is CRISPR so easy to use that we
need to worry about biohackers—either accidentally or intentionally—creating
dangerous pathogens? Carroll and others think that the danger of putting
CRISPR in the hands of the average person is relatively low. “People have
imagined scenarios where scientists could use CRISPR to generate a virulent
pathogen, ” he says. “How big is the risk? It’s not zero, but it’s fairly
small.” Gersbach agrees. “Right now, it’s difficult to imagine how it’d be
dangerous in a real way,” he explains_

It's hard for "normal" people to imagine how sociopaths or those with
destructive aims will behave when given flexible tools like this. It's kind of
like how no one anticipated how social media networks whose ostensible purpose
is to connect friends could be used to undermine elections, abet fraud, commit
character assassination, and drive people to suicide. And while the real-life
example of using CRISPR to switch the limbs of tiny crustaceans sounds
harmless, wait til someone mutates something bigger and more familiar for
"better" attributes or capabilities that can cause direct harm or inadvertent
effects. It's probably already happened ... but we may not understand the
impact for years.

~~~
Gatsky
As other people have said, it has been possible to make bioweapons for a long
time, but engineered bioterrorism hasn't happened.

There are a few reasons I think. Firstly, there is a cultural disconnect
between fundamentalism and science heavy weapons development. In the same way
that ISIS is not building gigawatt lasers or rail guns, the groups capable of
terrorism don't prioritise research. They are often very atavistic, wanting a
return to a less technical, less advanced society.

The second thing is that engineering even the simplest organsim is still hard.
If you are trying to build a pandemic virus, you need a fairly elaborate set
up to do it and avoid killing yourself first. This is far less accessible than
making explosives, or obtaining guns.

The biggest risk is state funded labs in eg North Korea, or the emergence of
contract labs willing to do anything for a fee, eg a 'biohacking' equivalent
of Hacking Team.

~~~
cirgue
Aum Shinrikyo actually had a bio-weapons program that failed, seemingly due to
a lack of technical expertise:
[http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/revisiting-aum-
shinriky...](http://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/revisiting-aum-shinrikyo-
new-insights-most-extensive-non-state-biological-weapons-program-date-1/)

~~~
Gatsky
That was a fascinating and disconcerting read. The part where a cult member
falls into the fermentation tank supposedly filled with botulinum toxin and
comes out unscathed I guess illustrates the point I was trying to make.

------
bayesian_horse
I am not afraid of what "biohackers" can do with CRISPR. It's very hard to
come up with "pandemic viruses", even for nature, let alone for scientists, or
even hobbyists.

At worst, the capabilities CRISPR and other techniques from synthetic biology
give to genuine researchers will offset any mischief a hobbyist can do.

~~~
has2k1
The democratisation/commoditization of a technology increases the probability
that any given one capability of that technology will be discovered [1]. If
what you think of as "very hard" is rooted in historical and present
capabilities, those with angst on the issue are uncertain how long it will
remain "very hard". Given that there is radical change, I do not think that
sense of dread is misplaced.

[1] This is no a frivolous statistical argument. It helps establish a lower
threshold and when other factors are considered the effect is strictly
increased. The are some counter reasons, they help to think about he problem,
but they are less convincing.

~~~
bayesian_horse
"Hard" in evolutionary terms means that there are dozens or hundreds of steps,
which are individually very unlikely, compounding to the improbability of them
happening.

Evolution solves these things by brute force, but only if there is an
evolutionary pressure. "Pandemicity" is at best an accident, from an
evolutionary standpoint, and so is lethality. Both happening at once, thus, is
very hard.

An engineer could arrive at a solution faster, given that he knows the steps.
But knowing which steps to take is actually the hardest part of synthetic
biology.

------
patcheudor
I saw John Sotos, Chief Medical Officer of Intel talk at DEF CON 25 about bio-
hacking. This guy is at the top of his field and whip-smart. He's without a
doubt an expert in this field and it was one of the most terrifying talks I've
ever attended at DEF CON. Bio-hacking has the potential of being one of the
gravest threats to humanity in far more ways than just killing people. This is
a MUST WATCH:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKQDSgBHPfY)

------
LeoJiWoo
This will really take homebrew beer to the next level.

I can't imagine these kits allow modification of anything more than a
bacteria,virus, or fungus.

I'm no biologist though.

Is someone making a black death 2.0 in their garage even possible ?

~~~
bayesian_horse
There's a reason bioterrorism isn't a thing, even though terrorism-minded
people could get access to dangerous pathogens like Y. pestis or EBV if they
wanted to.

At least in my opinion, it's just too damn hard for them to merit the effort,
even compared to a sophisticated bomb. Trying to engineer (and test) a strain,
"weaponize" it, takes a lot of space, time and resources.

And then the delivery is also very difficult.. So hard, that even militaries
haven't totally figured it out.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
The hard part is protecting your side against the effects.

If you're not worried about protecting a population, pathogen production and
delivery becomes rather simpler.

~~~
bayesian_horse
Protecting anyone hasn't historically been a concern for terrorists at all.
Islamic terrorists, in particular, hit entirely Muslim targets all the time.

And no, even then, production and delivery isn't easy. There are no pathogens
which are both highly infectious and highly pathogenic, both because those
traits are mutually inhibiting, and such a pathogen would already have run its
course in the world. Any attempt to increase infectiousness and pathogenic
potential, however, would require a very large foot print, virtually
guaranteeing discovery by law enforcement.

~~~
ben_w
“Islamic” is probably the wrong level to group them. I would be surprised if
many people in Daesh are cool with their own terrorists killing lots of Daesh
supporters no matter how many Shia Muslims they kill without losing sleep.

~~~
bayesian_horse
I did mean the group of terrorists who refer to some version of Islam (as by
their interpretation), and regardless which subtype in this group, they all
seem to be killing a lot of muslims, again without particular regard of which
kind of muslim.

I admit this is an overgeneralisation, and there is a lot of subtle details
with significance, but my point was simply that terrorists often don't care
about their "partisan" civilians.

------
blacksmith_tb
Dupe:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15640921](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15640921)

~~~
dang
That's true but we'll let this one pass since the earlier discussion was
anemic.

------
devereaux
Why a moral panic instead of celebrating the achievement?

xx years ago, mail-order computer kits allowed absolutely anyone to hack code
(and, gasp! illegally copy software or create computer viruses!)

yy years ago, mail-order color printers and scanners allowed absolutely anyone
to hack paper (and, gasp! forge documents)

Is this part of a war against freedom? Then we are inconsistent. We should
also lament on how Intel ME backdoors have become less efficient due to free
software activist disabling them, or the demise of the Clipper chip promoted
during the Clinton years.

~~~
mrkstu
CRISPR allows _germ-line_ propagating modifications. Think about creating a
combo modification that expresses itself only after a 2nd or 3rd generation
but also increases reproduction success for intervening generations- you could
wipe out whole species, in a fairly straightforward manner.

A modified flu could deliver a 'Children of Men' style germline infertility.
This is like making everyone a little Kim Jong-un.

------
amelius
What if someone targets genotypes that are prevalent in, say, a specific race,
and puts this in the drinking water?

------
crewman
Fortunately there is difference between creating deadly virus or bacteria and
weaponizing it. Effective weaponization requires stabilization. Biwoweapon
must survive in the environment and there must good delivery mechanism.
Creating epidemic requires optimizing the delivery, contagiousness and
symptoms.

It seems that North Korea has remote islands dedicated to bioweapon
development and testing. Biosafety level 4 laboratories are must if your
researches go to home each night. But if you can do the most dangerous parts
in islands where people are in quarantine and have prisoners to experiment
with, it's easier. It's impossible to know how well they have weaponized their
bioweapons.

Description of North Korea’s BW Program from ROK Parliamentary Audit 2015:

>North Korea has 13 types of biological weapons in the form of agents, and it
can cultivate and weap- onize them within ten days. In an emergency, it is
likely that the North would prioritize using anthrax which is highly fatal and
smallpox which is highly contagious. Special forces, airplanes, and contam-
inated carcasses are the potential delivery means. It appears that the North
has not developed missile warheads with BW payload.

