"A step towards biological warfare with insects?" Topic

"A project funded by a research agency of the US Department of Defense is now giving rise to concerns about being possibly misused for the purpose of biological warfare. The programme called 'Insect Allies' intends for insects to be used for dispersing genetically modified viruses to agricultural plants in fields. These viruses would be engineered so they can alter the chromosomes of plants through 'genome editing'. This would allow for genetic modifications to be implemented quickly and at a large scale on crops that are already growing in fields, such as corn. In the journal Science, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön and the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution de Montpellier along with legal scholars from the University of Freiburg point out that this type of system could be more easily developed for use as a biological weapon than for the proposed agricultural purpose.

It is argued by the programs funders, that genome editing using synthetic viruses will open up unprecedented possibilities for changing the properties of crop plants already growing in fields. Plants could, for example, be genetically altered to nearly instantly become less susceptible to pests or droughts. Until now, genetic engineering of commercial seeds always occurred in laboratories. With farmers planting seeds, needing to anticipate what environmental conditions will likely arise during a growing season. This means that, in the case of an unexpected drought, only farmers who had already planted drought-resistant seeds would gain a benefit. However, the originators of this project claim that genetic engineering in fields would offer farmers the possibility to alter the genetic properties of their crops at any time. Use of this technology would represent a radical break with many existing farming practices, potentially jeopardizing their coexistence…."
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Amicalement
Armand

This never ends well since once they are out there they are always out there.

Unintended/unforeseen consequences, anyone???

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand