The Pentagon Wants to Make an Army of Virus-Spreading Insects. Scientists Are Concerned.
The Pentagon Wants to Make an Army of Virus-Spreading Insects. Scientists Are Concerned.
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 The Stone age of transgenic technology was finished somewhere at the end of the first decade of this Century. The game changer in genome editing appeared to be a method called CRISPR-Cas which enable the more sophisticated gene manipulation, by far, and gives the ability to introduce a particular induced mutation throughout the whole genome of an organism. Moreover, the effect of the genome change could be visible in one generation, and no crosses and/or the next generation of progenies is required. The process in reverse direction is possible, as well, that put a cherry on the top of this. The changes in technology are of that scale that put a question of GMO definition validity. Not to mention that CRISPER opens the road and speed up the further evolution of genome editing laboratory techniques. Though, CRISPR needs to be polished some more, it is improving by day, giving a whole new world of opportunities as a powerful biological scissors, for more precise genetic surgery. However, the attractiveness of new genome editing technologies is not promising benefits for medicine, or agriculture, mostly. A “Military Intelligence”, as it seems, has found an angle, as well. An angle that could give you the shivers. |
DARPA INSECT ALLIES PROGRAM INFORMATION
The Insect Allies program is pursuing scalable, readily deployable, and generalizable countermeasures against potential natural and engineered threats to the food supply with the goals of preserving the U.S. crop system. National security can be quickly jeopardized by naturally occurring threats to the crop system, including pathogens, drought, flooding, and frost, but especially by threats introduced by state or non-state actors.
Insect Allies seeks to mitigate the impact of these incursions by applying targeted therapies to mature plants with effects that are expressed at relevant timescales—namely, within a single growing season.
Such an unprecedented capability would provide an urgently needed alternative to pesticides, selective breeding, slash-and-burn clearing, and quarantine, which are often ineffective against rapidly emerging threats and are not suited to securing mature plants. To develop such countermeasures, Insect Allies performer teams are leveraging a natural and efficient two-step delivery system to transfer modified genes to plants: insect vectors and the plant viruses they transmit.
The program’s three technical areas—viral manipulation, insect vector optimization, and selective gene therapy in mature plants—layer together to support the goal of rapidly modifying plant traits without the need for extensive infrastructure.
Since the start of the program, Insect Allies teams with expertise in molecular and synthetic biology have demonstrated mounting technical breakthroughs that are providing foundational knowledge in plant virus gene editing and disease vector biology from which the program will continue to build.
DARPA emphasizes biosafety and biosecurity in this research. All work is conducted inside closed laboratories, greenhouses, or other secured facilities; DARPA is not funding open release. [Dr. Blake Bextine/DARPA]
Can a task force of insects carrying genetically modified viruses save America's farms — or are they an uncontrollable bioweapon in the making?
This is the debate swirling around a controversial new Pentagon research project called "Insect Allies." Funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the project involves using gene-editing techniques like CRISPR to infect insects with modified viruses that could help make America's crops more resilient. If a cornfield were hit by an unexpected drought or suddenly exposed to a pathogen, for example, Insect Allies might deploy an army of aphids carrying a genetically modified virus to slow the corn plant's growth rate.
According to the DARPA website, these "targeted therapies" could take effect in a single growing season, potentially protecting the American crop system from food security threats like disease, flooding, frost and even "threats introduced by state or non-state actors." [Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired by Nature]
Members of the scientific community are skeptical. In a letter published today (Oct. 5) in the journal Science, a team of five scientists voiced concerns that the project could be easily exploited as a biological weapon — or at least be perceived as one by the international community.
"In our opinion the justifications are not clear enough. For example, why do they use insects? They could use spraying systems," Silja Voeneky, a co-author of the letter and professor of international law at the University of Freiburg in Germany, told The Washington Post."To use insects as a vector to spread diseases is a classical bioweapon."
Blake Bextine, program manager for Insect Allies, is less concerned. "Anytime you're developing a new and revolutionary technology, there is that potential for [both offensive and defensive] capability," Bextine told The Washington Post. "But that is not what we are doing. We are delivering positive traits to plants… We want to make sure we ensure food security, because food security is national security in our eyes."
Insect Allies is still in the early stages of development, and at least four U.S. colleges (Boyce Thompson Institute, Penn State University, The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin) have received funding to carry out research. Bextine told The Washington Post that the project recently achieved its first milestone — testing whether an aphid could infect a stalk of corn with a designer virus that caused fluorescence. According to the Washington Post, "the corn glowed." [Originally published on Live Science]
Members of the scientific community are skeptical. In a letter published today (Oct. 5) in the journal Science, a team of five scientists voiced concerns that the project could be easily exploited as a biological weapon — or at least be perceived as one by the international community.
"In our opinion the justifications are not clear enough. For example, why do they use insects? They could use spraying systems," Silja Voeneky, a co-author of the letter and professor of international law at the University of Freiburg in Germany, told The Washington Post."To use insects as a vector to spread diseases is a classical bioweapon."
Blake Bextine, program manager for Insect Allies, is less concerned. "Anytime you're developing a new and revolutionary technology, there is that potential for [both offensive and defensive] capability," Bextine told The Washington Post. "But that is not what we are doing. We are delivering positive traits to plants… We want to make sure we ensure food security, because food security is national security in our eyes."
Insect Allies is still in the early stages of development, and at least four U.S. colleges (Boyce Thompson Institute, Penn State University, The Ohio State University and the University of Texas at Austin) have received funding to carry out research. Bextine told The Washington Post that the project recently achieved its first milestone — testing whether an aphid could infect a stalk of corn with a designer virus that caused fluorescence. According to the Washington Post, "the corn glowed." [Originally published on Live Science]
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