A powerful new genetic technology could eliminate scourges such as malaria and rid entire countries of destructive invasive species. But officials from the FBI to the Pentagon to the United Nations bioweapons office, STAT has learned, are concerned about the potential of “gene drives” to alter evolution in ways scientists can’t imagine, and even offer a devastating new tool to bioterrorists. Now they are scrambling to get ahead of it.
The Pentagon’s shoot-for-the-moon research-funding arm, DARPA, though enthusiastic about the potential benefits of gene drives, is studying approaches that could halt them if they went out of control and threatened ecological havoc.
A special agent from the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, which works to prevent nuclear, chemical, and biological attacks, is scheduled to brief a scientific panel in Washington next week that is advising the government on how to regulate gene drives. The bureau declined to comment on its interest in the technology.
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