No impact.

Listed below are some constraints that show how in the US the development of dangerous infectious agents, referred to as “select agents”, is controlled – perhaps misuse even prevented – through technical and administrative hurdles: I. Re-creating an already existing dangerous virus for malicious intent is a complex scientific endeavor. (i) It requires considerable scientific knowledge and experience and, more importantly, considerable financial support. That support usually comes from government and private agencies (NIH, NAF, etc.), organizations that carefully screen at multiple levels all applications for funding of ALL biological research. (ii) It requires an environment suitable for experimenting with dangerous infectious agents (containment facilities). Any work in containment facilities is also carefully regulated. II. Genetic engineering to synthesize or modify organisms relies on chemical synthesis of DNA. Synthesizing DNA is automated and carried out with sophisticated, expensive instruments. The major problem of DNA synthesis, however, is that the product is not error-free. Any single mistake in the sequence of small DNA segments (30–60 nucleotides) or large segments (>500 nucleotides) can ruin the experiment. Companies have developed strategies to produce and deliver error free, synthetic DNA, which investigators can order electronically from vendors, such as Integrated DNA Technologies (US), GenScript (US) or GeneArt (Germany). This offers a superb and easy way to control experimental procedures carried out in any laboratory: the companies will automatically scan ordered sequences in extensive data banks to monitor relationship to sequences of a select agent. If so, the order will be stalled until sufficient evidence has been provided by the investigator that she/he is carrying out experiments approved by the authorities. The entire complex issue of protecting society from the misuse of select agents has been discussed in two outstanding studies [11, 12]. III. Engineering a virus such that it will be more harmful (more contagious, more pathogenic) is generally difficult because, in principle, viruses have evolved to proliferating maximally in their natural environment. That is, genetic manipulations of a virus often lead to loss of fitness that, in turn, is unwanted in the bioterrorist agent.