ly these scientists meant no harm, but if someone who does mean harm learns how they did it, the results could be catastrophic. In response to this, the United States government has been taking steps to prevent information and technology from getting to people who may have malicious intentions by putting new measures in place. These include assessing how potentially dangerous new projects are, more heavily regulating who can access highrisk infectious agents, and keeping more papers classified (1, 6). Despite these concerns, there have been no legitimate biosecurity threats reported yet, making synthetic biology’s safety record very good (6). Its clean record combined with the many new safety measures being implemented helps ease some of the concerns about the field. In summary, synthetic biology is incredibly useful in the medical field and will have a positive impact on the development of vaccines and future medical research. This is proven by the number of accomplishments that have already taken place in the field’s short lifetime. These include, but are certainly not limited to, the improvement of the method for developing vaccines through the use of engineered virus-like particles that are enhanced with the use of synthetic biology and the creation of a synthetic
gene network that can test anti-cancer drugs. Although, despite all the good synthetic biology can do, there are plenty of hypothetical dangers that come with the breakthroughs such as the threat of biological weapons. However, there are regulations in place to prevent these possibilities from becoming realities. As has already been shown, synthetic biology is capable of allowing many significant advances in the development of vaccines and in future medical research if we embrace it.
References 1. Staff, Synthetic biology. National Human Genome Research Institute, (2019). 2. F. Meng and T. Ellis, The second decade of synthetic biology: 2010–2020. Nature Communications 11, 1-4 (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-19092-2. 3. H. Charlton Hume, et al., Synthetic biology for bioengineering virus-like particle vaccines. Biotechnology and Bioengineering 116, 919-935 (2019). doi: 10.1002/bit.26890. 4. J. Rosenthal, et al., Pathogen-like particles: biomimetic vaccine carriers engineered at the nanoscale . Current Opinion in Biotechnology 28, 51-58 (2014). doi: 10.1016/j.copbio.2013.11.005. 5. Z. Kis, et al., Mammalian synthetic biology: emerging medical applications. Journal of the Royal Society Interface 12, 1-18 (2014). doi: 10.1098/rsif.2014.1000. 6. G. Gronvall, Safety, security, and serving the public interest in synthetic biology. Biotechnology Methods 45, 463-366 (2018). doi: 10.1007/s10295-018-2026-4.
Graphics illustrated by Komal Grewal `23
THE SAFETY BEHIND SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY
VACCINES
By Jennifer Zhong, Smithtown High School East As COVID-19 deaths and cases rise, rapid vaccine safety, development, and distribution become extremely important to potentially solve this world crisis. A myriad of people, over 105 million, have been infected with COVID-19 and well over 2 million have passed away as of February 2021 (7). The numbers continue to climb. During a global pandemic such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines need to be manufactured in large quantities and at a low cost in order to fulfill the availability of vaccines needed for herd immunity (10). Synthetic biology is a field that has been utilized to speed the development of COVID-19 vaccines using synthetically engineered organic molecules (2). DNA and RNA vaccines contain synthetic nucleotide transcripts delivered into the patient to produce translated proteins in the cells. There is an immune response triggered by these proteins that can protect the body from the virus (2,5). Synthetic biology has the potential to make a safe, quicker option for vaccine development compared to traditional vaccines and advance medical research worldwide. There are various benefits to using DNA and RNA vaccines compared to traditional vaccines. Non-viral vaccines provide a less costly, faster op-
tion for vaccine development. Previous development has taken an exceptionally long time to develop and manufacture, anywhere between 10 to 15 years, while it has taken less than one year for the COVID-19 vaccines (3). After viral genome sequencing, Moderna started human tests for the development of their current mRNA vaccine after only 66 days (10). Although live vaccines produce a very strong immune response, the dead or weakened pathogen may revert (6). There is a chance a live vaccine can become pathogenic if it recombines with a wild strain in nature, which coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2 have done in the past (6). On the other hand, RNA vaccines are considered to be safe because the spike protein is unable to reactivate and become dangerous. Despite many concerns, there is also no risk of integration of RNA into the patient’s genome (10). However, there are a few drawbacks to non-viral vaccines. They require multiple vaccinations to achieve immunity. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna have each produced mRNA vaccines that are currently approved by the Food & Drug Association for emergency use (1). Both Moderna and Pfizer, frontrunners for COVID-19 vaccines, require two doses to be fully vaccinated due to the
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