Are Manmade Viruses the Next Big Terrorist Threat?
A devastating string of mass shootings has left the country reeling this year. But an even greater threat may be looming in the near future, one with the potential to cause far more widespread injury and loss of life: synthetically modified diseases designed to infect human beings on a global scale.
That's the danger that best-selling author and futurist Rob Reid predicts could arise from the field of synthetic biology, which combines biology and engineering to create artificial biological systems, from genetically-modified crops to custom viruses.
Synthetic biologists have been modifying the DNA of pathogens with alarming speed and efficacy over the last decade, Reid notes, opening up a new frontier in virology, public health and global security.
"I'm a big SynBio fan," says Reid, who believes in the promising applications of DNA modification, such as solutions for climate
