For instance, Hacker News often discusses issues of privacy, asking whether new methods of finding bad actors could be misused to persecute responsible actors. It is totally fine to say "Is this good thing worthwhile if it could also cause this bad thing?"
What's the risk of lab leak? Is it impossible? Can these particles go airborne? If someone used them maliciously would anyone even figure it out? I think these are valid questions. As just one example China have been working on biological weapons that can target people specific genetic characteristics and they even brag about it. For all I know this could be another project to make dual-purpose weapons that can target specific groups of people.
We know how to make things that are lethal in incredibly small doses.
Compare to this, which is not likely to stay in the air well, not self-replicating, and not-contagious, and would require larger doses for lethality.
Sure, we should be careful with any new technology, but the options to weaponize this or to have unexpected bystander externalities seems really small compared to other established technologies and risks we bear.
> Can these particles go airborne? Again, "go airborne" is a common fear with viruses. Can they mutate and gain some new function allowing them to be infectious via a new pathway. These lipid particles wont "go airborne" because they don't reproduce, they are under 0 evolutionary pressure and carry a minimal payload. It like asking if the COVID vaccine could mutate and go airborne. One could certainly spray some of these particles in the air, they will land on the nearest surface and likely break or degrade along the way. You could probably spray them on your arm and it would not result in any editing.
> If someone used them maliciously would anyone even figure it out? If someone were able to successfully deploy a targeted genetic weapon with adverse side effects, it would likely take some time to figure out, but we absolutely have the ability and technology to figure it out today. The result would be a brand new variant in the population which has never been seen before, that looks like a CRISPR edit and is making a bunch of people of one country sick.
> Has everyone involved on this project been working in a lab that has made it near impossible for this to be abused and have all these people gone through exhaustive background and psychological testing and re-testing? Almost certainly not. You are setting a bar pretty high for people doing pretty basic research in mice. I think we should probably setup this level of testing for all our police, military, elected officials, etc.
Citation 3 is the only one worth engaging with, and it answers most of these questions in the summary. Basically the tech is nowhere near ready (despite what some PLA general wants to pretend), and even if it was the actual targeting of a specific population is not even feasible given population genetics.
I use a simple nerve agent to get rid of flies. Permethrin is a sodium channel blocker that causes an overload of the CNS. Insects and very young mammals with under-developed livers can not metabolize it. So I suppose that targets a class of living things but I can not target specific breeds of flies with it. If I could then Botflies would be target numero uno.
And a number of other works. Not a terribly uncommon idea.