Article Image

IPFS News Link • Darpa

DARPA's $100 million Gene Drive program

• https://www.nextbigfuture.com, brian wang

The DARPA program is discussed in some recently release emails.

Darpa believes that a steep fall in the costs of gene-editing toolkits has created a greater opportunity for hostile or rogue actors to experiment with the technology.

"This convergence of low cost and high availability means that applications for gene editing – both positive and negative – could arise from people or states operating outside of the traditional scientific community and international norms," the official said. "It is incumbent on Darpa to perform this research and develop technologies that can protect against accidental and intentional misuse."

Gene-drive research has been pioneered by an Imperial College London professor, Andrea Crisanti, who confirmed he has been hired by Darpa on a $2.5m contract to identify and disable such drives.


midfest.info