Citizen- scientists little regulated, raising fear of homemade bioweapons
WASHINGTON — As a teenager, Keoni Gandall already was operating a cutting-edge research laboratory in his bedroom in Huntington Beach, California.
While his friends were buying video games, he acquired more than a dozen pieces of equipment — a transilluminator, a centrifuge, two thermocyclers — in pursuit of a hobby that once was the province of scientists with doctorates in institutional labs.
“I just wanted to clone DNA using my automated lab robot and feasibly make full genomes at home,” he said.
Gandall was far from alone. In the past few years, so-called biohackers across the country have taken gene editing into their own hands. As the equipment becomes cheaper and the expertise in gene-editing techniques — mostly Crispr-Cas9 — more widely shared, citizen-scientists are attempting to re-engineer DNA in surprising ways.
Until now, the work has amounted to little more than DIY misfires. A year ago, a biohacker injected himself Gandall also does research in Stanford University’s bioengineering laboratory.
at a conference with modified DNA that he hoped would make him more muscular. (It did not.)
Earlier this year, at Body Hacking Con in Austin, Texas, a biotech executive injected himself with what he hoped would be a herpes treatment. (Verdict: No.) His company already had live-streamed a man injecting himself with a homebrewed treatment for HIV. (His viral load increased.)
In a recent interview, Gandall, now 18 and a research fellow at Stanford University, said he wants only to ensure open access to gene-editing technology, believing that future biotech discoveries might come from the least-expected minds.
But he is quick to acknowledge that the do-it-yourself genetics revolution one day might go catastrophically wrong.
“Even I would tell you: The level of DNA synthesis regulation, it simply isn’t good enough,” Gandall said. “These regulations aren’t going to work when everything is decentralized — when everybody has a DNA synthesizer on their smartphone.”
The most pressing worry is that someone, somewhere, will use the spreading technology to create a bioweapon.
Already, a research team at the University of Alberta in Edmonton,