Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Optimizing viral vectors and their properties will be important for improving the effectiveness and safety of clinical gene therapy. However, such research may generate dual-use insights relevant to the enhancement of pandemic pathogens. In...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2022
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/146066 |
| _version_ | 1811093667548495872 |
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| author | Sandbrink, Jonas B Alley, Ethan C Watson, Matthew C Koblentz, Gregory D Esvelt, Kevin M |
| author2 | Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) |
| author_facet | Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Sandbrink, Jonas B Alley, Ethan C Watson, Matthew C Koblentz, Gregory D Esvelt, Kevin M |
| author_sort | Sandbrink, Jonas B |
| collection | MIT |
| description | <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Optimizing viral vectors and their properties will be important for improving the effectiveness and safety of clinical gene therapy. However, such research may generate dual-use insights relevant to the enhancement of pandemic pathogens. In particular, reliable and generalizable methods of immune evasion could increase viral fitness sufficient to cause a new pandemic. High potential for misuse is associated with (1) the development of universal genetic elements for immune modulation, (2) specific insights on capsid engineering for antibody evasion applicable to viruses with pandemic potential, and (3) the development of computational methods to inform capsid engineering. These risks may be mitigated by prioritizing non-viral delivery systems, pharmacological immune modulation methods, non-genetic vector surface modifications, and engineering methods specific to AAV and other viruses incapable of unassisted human-to-human transmission. We recommend that computational vector engineering and the publication of associated code and data be limited to AAV until a technical solution for preventing malicious access to viral engineering tools has been established.</jats:p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:48:37Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/146066 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:48:37Z |
| publishDate | 2022 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1460662022-11-02T03:04:41Z Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement Sandbrink, Jonas B Alley, Ethan C Watson, Matthew C Koblentz, Gregory D Esvelt, Kevin M Program in Media Arts and Sciences (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) <jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Optimizing viral vectors and their properties will be important for improving the effectiveness and safety of clinical gene therapy. However, such research may generate dual-use insights relevant to the enhancement of pandemic pathogens. In particular, reliable and generalizable methods of immune evasion could increase viral fitness sufficient to cause a new pandemic. High potential for misuse is associated with (1) the development of universal genetic elements for immune modulation, (2) specific insights on capsid engineering for antibody evasion applicable to viruses with pandemic potential, and (3) the development of computational methods to inform capsid engineering. These risks may be mitigated by prioritizing non-viral delivery systems, pharmacological immune modulation methods, non-genetic vector surface modifications, and engineering methods specific to AAV and other viruses incapable of unassisted human-to-human transmission. We recommend that computational vector engineering and the publication of associated code and data be limited to AAV until a technical solution for preventing malicious access to viral engineering tools has been established.</jats:p> 2022-11-01T17:56:12Z 2022-11-01T17:56:12Z 2022 2022-11-01T17:51:32Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/146066 Sandbrink, Jonas B, Alley, Ethan C, Watson, Matthew C, Koblentz, Gregory D and Esvelt, Kevin M. 2022. "Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement." Gene Therapy. en 10.1038/S41434-021-00312-3 Gene Therapy Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Springer Science and Business Media LLC Nature |
| spellingShingle | Sandbrink, Jonas B Alley, Ethan C Watson, Matthew C Koblentz, Gregory D Esvelt, Kevin M Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title | Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title_full | Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title_fullStr | Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title_full_unstemmed | Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title_short | Insidious Insights: Implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| title_sort | insidious insights implications of viral vector engineering for pathogen enhancement |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/146066 |
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