Abstract

In response to the outbreak of COVID-19 that has been sweeping the world, scientists reconstructed the SARS-CoV-2 rapidly using a synthetic genomics platform, in order to accelerate therapeutics and vaccine development. However, given the dual-use nature of this technology, there exists a high biosecurity risk. This paper points out the potential risks of the engineering SARS-CoV-2 virus and puts forward 6 questions to this work. The authors emphasize that the two basic values of safety/security and intellectual freedom of research must be considered evenly. From the perspective of responsible development of biotechnology, this paper calls for a careful assessment to the risks of the technology, replacing risky technologies with safe ones. The risks of publication also need to be strictly assessed. The authors believe, in addition to enhancing the “self-government” and self-discipline of scientists and scientific communities, government supervision must be reinforced, laws and regulations should be improved, and global regulation framework ought to be constructed.

Citation

Peng Gao, Shiwen Ma, Daru Lu, Carl Mitcham, Yijia Jing, Guoyu Wang. (2020). Prudently conduct the engineering and synthesis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Synthetic and Systems Biotechnology, 5(2), 59-61.