{"id":5858,"date":"2010-02-07T21:27:32","date_gmt":"2010-02-08T05:57:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5858"},"modified":"2010-02-07T21:27:32","modified_gmt":"2010-02-08T05:57:32","slug":"mad-science-military-wants-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/?p=5858","title":{"rendered":"Mad Science: Military wants to breed immortal ‘synthetic organisms’"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/02\/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal \u2018Synthetic Organisms,\u2019 Molecular Kill-Switch Included<\/h1>\n

By Katie Drummond Email Author<\/p>\n

February 5, 2010<\/p>\n

The Pentagon\u2019s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military\u2019s advantage, creating \u201csynthetic organisms\u201d that can live forever \u2014 or can be killed with the flick of a molecular switch.<\/p>\n

As part of its budget for the next year<\/a>, Darpa is investing $6 million into a project called BioDesign, with the goal of eliminating \u201cthe randomness of natural evolutionary advancement.\u201d The plan would assemble the latest bio-tech knowledge to come up with living, breathing creatures that are genetically engineered to \u201cproduce the intended biological effect.\u201d Darpa wants the organisms to be fortified with molecules that bolster cell resistance to death, so that the lab-monsters can \u201cultimately be programmed to live indefinitely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Darpa\u2019s got to prevent the super-species from being swayed to do enemy work \u2014 so they\u2019ll encode loyalty right into DNA, by developing genetically programmed locks to create \u201ctamper proof\u201d cells. Plus, the synthetic organism will be traceable, using some kind of DNA manipulation, \u201csimilar to a serial number on a handgun.\u201d And if that doesn\u2019t work, don\u2019t worry. In case Darpa\u2019s plan somehow goes horribly awry, they\u2019re also tossing in a last-resort, genetically-coded kill switch:<\/p>\n

Develop strategies to create a synthetic organism \u201cself-destruct\u201d option to be implemented upon nefarious removal of organism.<\/p>\n

The project comes as Darpa also plans to throw $20 million into a new synthetic biology program, and $7.5 million into \u201cincreasing by several decades the speed with which we sequence, analyze and functionally edit cellular genomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, Darpa\u2019s up against some vexing, fundamental laws of nature \u2014 not to mention bioethics \u2014 as they embark on the lab beast program. First, they might want to rethink the idea of evolution as a random series of events, says NYU biology professor David Fitch. \u201cEvolution by selection is not a random process at all, and is actually a hugely efficient design algorithm used extensively in computation and engineering,\u201d he e-mails Danger Room.<\/p>\n

Even if Darpa manages to overcome the inherent intelligence of evolutionary processes, overcoming inevitable death can be tricky. Just ask all the other research teams who\u2019ve made stabs at it, trying everything from cell starvation to hormone treatments. Gene therapy, where artificial genes are inserted into an organism to boost cell life, are the latest and greatest in life-extension science, but they\u2019ve only been proven to extend lifespan by 20 percent in rats.<\/p>\n

But suppose gene therapy makes major strides, and Darpa does manage to get the evolutionary science right. They\u2019ll also have a major ethical hurdle to jump. Synthetic biology researchers are already facing the same questions, as a 2009 summary from the Synthetic Biology Project reports:<\/p>\n

The concern that humans might be overreaching when we create organisms that never before existed can be a safety concern, but it also returns us to disagreements about what is our proper role in the natural world (a debate largely about non-physical harms or harms to well-being).<\/p>\n

Even expert molecular geneticists don\u2019t know what to make of the project. Either that, or they\u2019re scared Darpa might sic a bio-bot on them. \u201cI would love to comment, but unfortunately Darpa has installed a kill switch in me,\u201d one unnamed expert tells Danger Room.<\/p>\n

Read More http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/02\/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included\/#ixzz0evUxlLlE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/www.wired.com\/dangerroom\/2010\/02\/pentagon-looks-to-breed-immortal-synthetic-organisms-molecular-kill-switch-included\/ Pentagon Looks to Breed Immortal \u2018Synthetic Organisms,\u2019 Molecular Kill-Switch Included By Katie Drummond Email Author February 5, 2010 The Pentagon\u2019s mad science arm may have come up with its most radical project yet. Darpa is looking to re-write the laws of evolution to the military\u2019s advantage, creating \u201csynthetic organisms\u201d that can live forever \u2014 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Mad Science: Military wants to breed immortal ‘synthetic organisms’”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5858"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5860,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5858\/revisions\/5860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dmzhawaii.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}