Health security
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In March 2017, the American biotech company Tonix announced that a Canadian scientist had synthesized horsepox virus as part of a project to develop a safer vaccine against smallpox. The first de novo synthesis of an orthopoxvirus, a closely related group of viruses that includes horsepox and the variola virus that causes smallpox, crosses an important Rubicon in the field of biosecurity. The synthesis of horsepox virus takes the world one step closer to the reemergence of smallpox as a threat to global health security. ⋯ Unless the safeguards against the synthesis of variola virus are strengthened, the capability to reintroduce smallpox into the human population will be globally distributed and either loosely or completely unregulated, providing the foundation for a disgruntled or radicalized scientist, sophisticated terrorist group, unscrupulous company, or rogue state to recreate one of humanity's most feared microbial enemies. The reemergence of smallpox-because of a laboratory accident or an intentional release-would be a global health disaster. International organizations, national governments, the DNA synthesis industry, and the synthetic biology community all have a role to play in devising new approaches to preventing the reemergence of smallpox.
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This article explores how advances in synthetic biology, and the potential threat of deliberately recreating and spreading smallpox, are affecting the multilateral debate on the remaining variola virus stocks. It draws on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 high-profile, European-based experts in biosecurity and synthetic biology. Four overarching themes affecting the retention or destruction debate are discussed, relating to biosecurity, dangerous knowledge, accidental releases, and eradication. We conclude that while synthetic biology seems to affect all the main discourses in the variola stocks debate, a range of views is present and it is not apparent that advances in synthetic biology are causing a shift toward either retention or destruction of the stocks.