BIOSECURITY AND BIOTERRORISM: BIODEFENSE STRATEGY, PRACTICE, AND SCIENCE
Volume 1, Number 3, 2003
© Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
The Pace and Proliferation of Biological Technologies
ROBERT CARLSON
THE ADVENT OF THE home molecular biology laboratory
is not far off. While there is no Star Trek “Tricorder”
in sight, the physical infrastructure of molecular biology is
becoming more sophisticated and less expensive every
day. Automated commercial instrumentation handles an
increasing fraction of laboratory tasks that were once the
sole province of doctoral level researchers, reducing labor
costs and increasing productivity. This technology is grad-
ually moving into the broader marketplace as laboratories
upgrade to new equipment. Older, still very powerful in-
struments are finding their way into wide distribution, as
any cursory tour of eBay will reveal.1 These factors are
contributing to a proliferation that will soon put highly ca-
pable tools in the hands of both professionals and amateurs
worldwide. There are obvious short term risks from in-
creased access to DNA synthesis and sequencing tech-
nologies, and the general improvement of technologies
used in measuring and manipulating molecules will soon
enable a broad and distributed enhancement in the ability
to alter biological systems. The resulting potential for mis-
chief or mistake causes understandable concern—there are
already public calls by scientists and politicians alike to re-
strict access to certain technologies, to regulate the direc-
tion of biological research, and to censor publication of
some new techniques and data. It is questionable, how-
ever, whether such efforts will increase security or benefit
the public good. Proscription of information and artifacts
generally leads directly to a black market that is difficult to
monitor and therefore difficult to police. A superior alter-
native is the deliberate creation of an open and expansive
research community, which may be better able to respond
to crises and better able to keep track of research wh