Since 2020, rumours have swirled throughout the global media about coronavirus-infected bats and pangolins, secret bioweapons laboratories and microchips in vaccines - and with such a breadth of conflicting information readily available, it can become hard to distinguish fact from fiction. Compounding upon this effect, the development and hyper-accessibility of AI image generators, deepfakes and news articles have made the spread of misinformation all the more virulent. As you might know, over 10% of content sourced by Google's search engine can now be flagged as AI-generated (according to an ongoing study by originality.ai) - a frightening statistic when the frequent inaccuracies of algorithmic AI are taken into account. With all this in mind, tales of covert biolabs concealed in the arid landscape of California's Central Valley seem hardly believable - and yet recent evidence suggests that these stories of malevolent or, at the very least, negligent actors misusing biological compounds which might very well have the potential to destroy entire communities, or even civilisations.
However, as discussed within the TIME article linked in the resource list below, the threat of the ‘invisible biolab’ is very real. One such lab in the Californian Central Valley, registered with a biotechnology company specialising in the production of testing kits, was identified as having mishandled samples of a variety of infectious diseases, including dengue, malaria and HIV - a biosafety oversight which could potentially have resulted in a localised epidemic. The regulatory biosafety standards developed by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (alongside the UK COSHH legislation, which mandates the organisational protection of workers and other persons from hazardous substances) are designed to prevent this eventuality, outlining a series of precautions to be taken when handling certain biological compounds and microbes (notably, infectious agents). A minor breach of these biosafety standards could result in the contamination of lab equipment, but a more significant incident could result in a large-scale loss of biological integrity - environmental contamination on what could potentially become a global scale. In the case of the Central Valley biolab, the mishandling of infectious agents appears to be no more than a consequence of negligent laboratory management - but such misconduct isn’t always innocent in intention.
The Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult is best remembered for a sarin gas attack on Tokyo subway passengers in 1995, with members’ unsuccessful efforts to develop potent bioweapons documented to a far lesser extent. Seiichi Endo, a scientist specialising in genetic and viral research, served as the lead of the Aum Shinrikyo bioweapons programme, facilitating the sarin gas attack alongside several previous initiatives, including attempts to infect members of the public with anthrax and botulinum toxin. Endo purchased a small amount of anthrax and attempted to cultivate the bacteria in large quantities, such that it could be aerosolised and fed into a sprayer system operating from the roof of the Aum Shinrikyo headquarters in Tokyo. Whilst he did succeed in producing vast quantities of the anthrax bacterium, and the cult did succeed in disseminating anthrax spores throughout the Japanese capital, no infections or subsequent deaths occurred as the particular strain of anthrax Endo had utilised was later identified as a non-virulent vaccine strain. Whilst this particular act of bioterrorism caused no fatalities, it serves to spotlight the existence of malevolent actors - those who would seek to engineer biological compounds to produce weapons of mass destruction.
Furthermore, it’s important to remember that not every would-be malevolent actor functions as a member of an obscure Japanese doomsday cult. An approximate six percent of human pathogen research activities occur in ‘invisible’ biolabs (those subject to little to no external monitoring) - and the emergence of artificial intelligence-based biotechnology introduces the possibility of this intelligence acting independently to create bioweapons or, at the very least, facilitating the efforts of those who would not otherwise have the facilities or know-how to develop such munitions. Additionally, the rapid evolution of biotechnologies capable of engineering on a cellular scale has raised concerns of the possibility of dual use (wherein an article of biological research could have both beneficial and harmful applications). For example, whilst CRISPR-Cas9 technologies could serve to provide therapeutic treatments for neurodegenerative diseases (e.g. Huntington’s chorea), there is a possibility that these technologies could be misused to enhance the pathogenicity of viruses (e.g. orthoebolaviruses, those which cause Ebola) or to facilitate acts of eugenics.
The Information Age might be associated with a total overhaul of global healthcare systems and the rapid development of therapeutic biotechnology, but it has also introduced sophisticated threats to global biological integrity, the likes of which have never previously been encountered - threats which could potentially result in the production of an engineered pandemic.
Mandatory Resources 🦠
A TIME Article Exploring the Concept of Invisible Biolabs
A Short Introduction to the Concept of Dual Use
A Khan Academy Video Introducing ‘The Central Dogma of Molecular Biology’
A UN Article Discussing the Production of ‘Pandemic-Busting’ Vaccines
‘Future-Proofing Protection Against Pandemics’: A PHG Article
Optional Resources 🔍