[DIYbio] Biosecurity

I hope folks might comment on the security measures taken by the DIYbio community to ensure containment of recombinant DNA. My background is in molecular biology at Florida State, Harvard Med, and the Whitehead Institute (currently Broad). I have several concerns:

1) The biological community in general seems to have concluded that rDNA is not hazardous because nothing noticeably bad has happened in the last 40 years. Look at figure 2 in this paper:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5898234/

In short, it has been shown through viral sequence analysis that plasmid DNA and other bacterial DNA can evolve into a eukaryotic virus. So plasmids we make today can contribute to viruses in the future. Risk increases with time as well as trials.

40 years is not long enough to conclude rDNA is safe.

2) Bioethics conversations focus on CRISPR application in humans. Should we be considering how our synthetic nucleic acids might affect the ecosystem that supports us? We are making nucleotide sequences that nature would likely never make.

3) I have taught high schoolers now for 15 years. If you want to know how an experiment can fail, have high schoolers do it. Whether through malice or inattention, students often make mistakes making solutions, much less performing ligation reactions or bacterial transformations. They are also not good at cleaning up. What is the competency level in your DIY lab?

4) What assurances can the DIYbio community give that BSL1 safety levels are being met and that rDNA and everything it touches are being sterilized properly?

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