Diggans James, Leproust Emily
Twist Bioscience Corporation, San Francisco, CA, United States.
Front Bioeng Biotechnol. 2019 Apr 24;7:86. doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2019.00086. eCollection 2019.
The DNA synthesis industry has, since the invention of gene-length synthesis, worked proactively to ensure synthesis is carried out securely and safely. Informed by guidance from the U.S. government, several of these companies have collaborated over the last decade to produce a set of best practices for customer and sequence screening prior to manufacture. Taken together, these practices ensure that synthetic DNA is used to advance research that is designed and intended for public benefit. With increasing scale in the industry and expanding capability in the synthetic biology toolset, it is worth revisiting current practices to evaluate additional measures to ensure the continued safety and wide availability of DNA synthesis. Here we encourage specific steps, in part derived from successes in the cybersecurity community, that can ensure synthesis screening systems stay well ahead of emerging challenges, to continue to enable responsible research advances. Gene synthesis companies, science and technology funders, policymakers, and the scientific community as a whole have a shared duty to continue to minimize risk and maximize the safety and security of DNA synthesis to further power world-changing developments in advanced biological manufacturing, agriculture, drug development, healthcare, and energy.
自基因长度合成技术发明以来，DNA合成行业一直积极努力确保合成过程的安全可靠。在美国政府指导意见的影响下，其中几家公司在过去十年中展开合作，制定了一套制造前客户和序列筛选的最佳实践方法。这些实践方法共同确保合成DNA被用于推动旨在造福公众的研究。随着行业规模的扩大和合成生物学工具集能力的提升，有必要重新审视当前的实践方法，以评估额外措施，确保DNA合成的持续安全和广泛可得性。在此，我们鼓励采取一些具体措施，部分措施源自网络安全领域的成功经验，这些措施可确保合成筛选系统在应对新出现的挑战时始终领先一步，从而继续推动负责任的研究进展。基因合成公司、科技资助者、政策制定者以及整个科学界都有共同的责任，继续将风险降至最低，最大限度地提高DNA合成的安全性，以进一步推动先进生物制造、农业、药物开发、医疗保健和能源领域改变世界的发展。
