Monthly Archives: April 2017

A new document made public this week via Edward Snowdens leak of NSA documents reveals a fascinating aim of signals intelligence program: The agency, it turns out, monitored international scientific developments in hopes of detecting nefarious genetic engineering projects more than a decade ago.

SIGINT is intelligence collected by monitoring electronic and communications signals. In 2013, documents leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden revealed the extent of the agencys reliance on this kind of intelligence to provide insight into the capabilities and intentions of foreign entities, as well as domestic targets. In the years since, documents have continued to trickle out of the Snowden leak that shed additional light on those efforts.

One such document made public by The Intercept this week describes a use of NSA signals intelligence not previously known to the public. In 2004, an NSA cryptanalyst intern described looking for information about genetic sequencing in the signals intelligence collected by the agency.

The ultimate goals of this project are to gain general knowledge about genetic engineering research activity by foreign entities, she wrote, and to identify laboratories and/or individuals who may be involved in nefarious use of genetic research.

Working for the Office of Tradecraft for Analysis, her job was developing algorithms to answer specific questions from metadata, looking for genetic sequences in signals and then presumably trying to figure out what kind of research activity those sequences indicated. This shouldnt be altogether surprisingafter all, senior intelligence officials have gone on record calling genetic engineering a weapon of mass destruction.

Given the broad distribution, low cost, and accelerated pace of development of this dual-use [genetic engineering] technology, its deliberate or unintentional misuse might lead to far-reaching economic and national security implications, an annual worldwide threat assessment report from the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and half a dozen other U.S. spy and fact-gathering operations said last year. Also last year, genome editing was added to the list of national security threats for the first time.

Last years report noted that new discoveries move easily in the globalized economy, as do personnel with the scientific expertise to design and use them, and pointed out the possibility of using the cutting-edge gene-editing technique CRISPR to edit the DNA of human embryos.

The leaked NSA documents, though, are dated long before CRISPR came on the scene. More than a decade ago, the government was concerned that foreign entities might be using genetic engineering for evil, be it creating brutal bioweapons or engineered super soldiers.

The single document gives no indication as to whether the program has continued. But elsewhere, there are signs that the intelligence community has only ramped up its efforts to keep tabs on potentially threatening scientific developments. The FBI, the Pentagon, and the United Nations bioweapons office all have efforts aimed at monitoring and studying potentially destructive uses of CRISPR. As technology advances, its safe to assume those efforts arent going to go away.

[The Intercept]

Original post:
Leaked Documents Reveal the NSA Spying on Scientists to Find ... - Gizmodo

A professor of plant pathology from the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture told a small audience Wednesday while there are some risks that come with the practice of genetically modifying crops, there's no evidence that genetically engineered foods are unsafe to eat.

After studying the issue of genetic engineering of food, "I just don't have any concern about my family eating genetically engineered crops," said Paul Vincelli, a UK extension profession and provost with the Sustainable Agriculture and Education Program.

Vincelli spoke about "food myths and misconceptions" at noon Wednesday at Owensboro Community & Technical College. Vincelli said genetic modification occurs in nature and has been done in agriculture for as long as people have been cross-breeding plants.

Genetic engineering, however, is more precise than cross breeding, because only a single gene is inserted into an engineered plant, while cross-bred plants receive the all the genes from both plants, Vincelli said.

"Genetic engineering is more precise than conventional breeding," Vincelli said. "It also causes less disruption on the plant."

Genetic engineering has been used to cure crop disease across the world, including those that pose dangers to humans, Vincelli said. Genetic engineering has also been used to grow corn that is not affected by glyphosate, the primary chemical in the weed herbicide Roundup, which benefits crop production for farmers, Vincelli said.

While there is some dispute whether glyphosate is a carcinogen -- with the EPA and other agencies saying "no" while a faction of the World Health Organization says "yes" -- there is no danger caused by the genetic modification of "Roundup Ready" corn, Vincelli said.

If glyphosate is shown to be carcinogenic, "the problem is not the genetic engineering," Vincelli said. "The problem is the glyphosate."

There is controversy about the safety of genetically engineered food, but the fear of "Frankenfood" is not supported by the scientific research, Vincelli said.

"The idea of 'Frankenfood' is really effective, but it does not represent scientific findings," Vincelli said. "... The food safety issue is not a significant risk."

Scientific academies in both the United States and Europe have agreed there is no evidence that genetically engineered food is not safe. The European public remains skeptical of genetically engineered food because of food scares they've experienced, such as outbreaks of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease," Vincelli said.

There are risks to creating genetically engineered food, namely that genetically modified seed can be spread far beyond its intended area, such as the case in Oregon, where a genetically modified form of grass has spread, raising concerns that it will spread into commercial grass seed, damaging seed producers' markets. There is also a risk to "cultural identity," such as the fear that genetically modified corn could affect "heritage corn" in South America, he said.

The idea of "global ruin," of genetically modified plants essentially infecting all other plants "does not have merit," Vincelli said.

There are already natural barriers in place to prevent "jumping genes," Vincelli said. If there were not, there would only be one type of plant, as opposed to the numerous varieties found in nature, he said. Vincelli said, in his mind, the biggest threat caused by genetic engineering is bioterrorism.

In supermarkets, labels proclaiming a product is free of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are misleading, because most products are already free of GMO items, said Mary Higginbotham, Daviess County's extension agent for family and consumer sciences. Vincelli said genetically modified products can be found in items containing high-fructose corn syrup, because that is made with corn.

Non-GMO labels in stores are "marketing," Higginbotham said. "This is companies wanting to put a non-GMO label on it ... It's very misleading to the consumer."

Read more:
Researcher: GMO worries overblown - messenger-inquirer

Paul Levine, a resident of West Tisbury who was a professor at Harvard and visiting professor at Stanford University, will contribute this occasional column devoted to scientific research taking place today, along with profiles of the Islands scientists and their work and facts of scientific note on the Island. This week, he discusses the genetics research that has led to CRISPR, which stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. If youre wondering what that is, read on.

Science and Scientists on the Vineyard returns this month with a two-part column on the subject that also goes by such names as genetic engineering, gene therapy, genetic modification, and recently gene editing. Regardless of its name, the technology has from its outset been lauded but also seen as controversial. CRISPR is in the news almost weekly because of questions of the ethics of its application and its potential to do both good and bad.

Over the past two years CRISPR has garnered a great deal of public notice through articles in scientific journals such as Science and Nature, major newspapers such as the New York Times, and in magazines like Time and the New Yorker. It has also been the subject on the radio of WCAIs Living Lab and NPRs Science Friday.

Last summer, The MV Times reported on the CRISPR technique being used to produce Borrelia-resistant white-footed mice to control Lyme disease both here and on Nantucket (July 20, Scientist proposes genetic attack on Marthas Vineyard ticks).

The impact that CRISPR will have on the future of genetic engineering and gene therapy is at once scientifically, ethically, politically, and economically immense. Lets go back to the early days of plant and animal breeding, and from there to the era of the production of genetically modified foods, and finally to the early efforts of human gene therapy, to put the subject into a historical context that I hope will provide for a rational discussion of the effects that CRISPR might have on human society.

First, put aside whatever opinions you may have for or against genetically modified organisms (including humans), and look at the history behind the genetic manipulation of plants and animals that has brought us to where we are today. Domestication and breeding of plants and animals may go back at least 11,000 years, with practices of selective breeding that led to improved survival, yield, and quality of domesticated plants, and overcame the deleterious effects of inbreeding.

After the 1905 rediscovery of Mendels Laws of Inheritance, a scientific approach to the development of methods of plant and animal breeding followed rapidly. In 1908, the plant geneticist George Shull at the Cold Spring Laboratory on Long Island showed that when he crossed inbred lines of corn that had deteriorated (showing lower yields, vigor, and disease resistance), the hybrids, sharing the genes of the inbred parents, completely recovered. Their yields were much greater than the inbred lines from which they were derived. A year later, Shull published the procedures for hybridization that became standard for corn and other organisms.

Hybridization of inbred lines of plants and animals means mingling the genes of the parents. But what if the desire is to focus on one specific gene? For example, what if one were to insert one of the flavor genes of an heirloom tomato into the DNA of a commercial variety, or to engineer human stem cells with normal genes to cure genetic disorders such as cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and Tay-Sachs disease?

In 1972, Stanford biochemist Paul Berg showed how a foreign gene could be isolated and inserted into the genome of E. coli, the common human gut bacterium, to produce a RecDNA (recombinant DNA) organism. In 1974, Stanley Cohn at Stanford University and Herbert Boyer of the University of California, San Francisco, and their colleagues introduced genes from the toad Xenopus laevis into E. coli bacteria.

Even before Mr. Berg published his seminal paper on recDNA, he became aware that there was the question of a possible health threat of combining genes from different organisms in the common E. coli. Was it possible that some virulent strain would emerge because of its recombinant genome?

Mr. Bergs recognition of this possibility, and the concerns of some of his colleagues, led them in 1974 to write a letter to others engaged in recDNA research to urge them to impose a moratorium on certain types of experiments that might be hazardous. There followed a conference of scientists in 1975 at the Asilomar Conference Center in Pacific Grove, Calif., to address the risks of the research. This meeting led to others, not only of concerned scientists but of ethicists, politicians, and members of the public.

In 1975 the National Institutes of Health produced a set of guidelines for recombinant DNA research. In a number of instances, concern over the possible hazards of recombinant DNA research and the need to carefully monitor that research became a local and state issue. In June 1976, the Cambridge City Council met to take up the question of Harvard Universitys plan to build and operate a special laboratory for the research. The city council discussed the possibility of the research becoming a health hazard to inhabitants of their city. After a contentious debate between members of the council and Harvard scientists, the council appointed a Cambridge Experimental Review Board, and ultimately a Cambridge Biohazards Committee, out of which came recommendations for oversight of the research. Similar concerns were expressed by the New York State Environmental Protection Division, and by the city of San Diego in California. The history of the controversy is excellently set forth in the book The Recombinant DNA Debate by David A. Jackson and Stephen P. Stich.

Thus began the era of recombinant DNA genetic engineering that saw the insertion of genes into bacteria and yeast for the production of insulin, some growth hormones, blood clotting factors, and vaccines.

Recombinant DNA technology also began to be applied to the production of genetically modified plants and animals, and thus the availability of genetically modified foods.

Since those days, products produced by genetic manipulation by the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food industries have grown immensely. So have the number of questions regarding their safety, questions for which there is no universal answer, and so discussions both pro and con continue to this day. A study of both positions can be found on the Web in articles here: bit.ly/GenFoods.

Today, with the advent of CRISPR, we find scientists and the public in positions not unlike those of the early days of recombinant DNA research, but with far greater intensity: The power of CRISPR for genetic engineering far exceeds that of the recombinant DNA technique. The next time I write on the subject, I will undertake to describe CRISPR gene editing, the larger-than-life characters at the center of the research, some of the current applications of CRISPR, and some research projects that focus on human gene editing, along with the ethical questions that have arisen as a consequence.

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Science and Scientists on the Vineyard: - Martha's Vineyard Times