The machine sits at the Ministry of the Armed Forces. Rectangular, the size of an oven, and capable of generating genomes, in a few hours, on the corner of a table. In the spring of 2021, the French defense innovation division acquired a DNA printer. A tool that allows you to create, modify, and assemble the basis of life – the biological program of cells – in a few clicks. A small technological revolution, completely eclipsed by the debates around the emergence of artificial intelligence.
At the time, the army was a pioneer. But what happens to Balard always ends up arousing a much wider interest. States, laboratories, research departments of companies… now, many players also want to obtain these machines. Innovative, these devices are increasingly sought after as prototypes improve. Because with them, the double helix becomes affordable and easy to obtain. No more complex forms to send to handpicked providers, sometimes on the other side of the world, to obtain DNA strands.
The manufacture of DNA has been a process that has been mastered since the 1980s, but until now only about a hundred laboratories in the world were able to produce it. Ultra-secure to prevent malicious organizations from using this technology to create viruses or biological weapons, the procedures were particularly restrictive. Not to mention the problems of routing, or availability of suppliers. These new generation printers avoid these difficulties. What accelerate innovation in the field of biotechnology.
Personalized therapies… and biological weapons
Vaccines and quasi-personalized therapies, biological and biodegradable pesticides, but also data storage or modification of viruses… Producing DNA but also RNA easily and at increasingly low costs could shake up our societies, perhaps be as much as artificial intelligence, as the technologies based on these molecules are so promising. But creating, modifying, assembling the genome in a few clicks also poses major biosafety problems. In the wrong hands, such tools can facilitate the production of biological weapons.
Created in 2014, the French start-up DNA Script is one of the companies that are shaking up DNA manufacturing, along with the American Telesis, or the British Evonetix and Nuclera. It is a DNA Script model that the French government purchased, to be able to develop reagents for emergency screening, in the event of a biological attack. The US Army’s Department of Innovation did the same. Just like Moderna, the American laboratory behind one of the RNA vaccines against Covid-19.
Fundraising for DNA Script reached 275 million euros last year, making the start-up a heavyweight in the sector. She is one of the first to have had the idea of using polymerase enzymes, molecules that naturally make DNA, rather than chemicals. “With these reagents, we get closer to what really happens in living cells and we can lengthen genetic sequences, nucleotide by nucleotide”, explains Thomas Ybert, founder of DNA Script. The company has just launched a new version of its printer, to make it easier to manufacture. He hopes to be able to produce more and more of them in the coming years.
The risk of unscrupulous actors
According to Thomas Ybert, this technology promises an infinity of innovations. “Look at what has happened with the appearance of programmable computer systems, and imagine what we could obtain with living things. Tomorrow we will communicate with cells, by giving them instructions directly, thanks to these molecules”, s’ enthuses the entrepreneur, with an increasingly full order book. Apart from fundamental research, making DNA could, for example, make it possible to store files in it for much longer than on a hard disk, or even to write codes modifying the functioning of certain microbes, to make them produce different resources.
Also aware of the risks of such opportunities, the company claims to have put in place important safeguards. “Our reagents are proprietary. If I sell you one of my printers and you export it to North Korea, the country will very quickly run out of consumables, and it will have to order from us again,” assures Thomas Ibert. The user must access servers hosted in the cloud to operate on the machines. Thus, DNA Script ensures that it can identify and block dangerous requests, and if necessary, deliver this information to the French or European authorities, with whom the company is in regular contact.
But, in the absence of legislation in most countries of the world, more and more specialists are concerned about the appearance of less scrupulous actors, and misuse. “This decentralized production allows greater confidentiality. A malicious user could create pathogenic or toxic DNA without being detected”, warns in particular the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a think tank which fights against weapons of mass destruction, in a report. published on May 10.
A moratorium, within two years
In view of these developments, the Nuclear Threat Initiative calls for a moratorium on technological progress in the sector, as the pundits of artificial intelligence had done. He calls for States and players to consult each other “in the next two years”, to put in place new regulations before the technological runaway, and thus define a list of standards to be adopted. “These devices require new thinking about governance and oversight, in order to guard against exploitation by malicious actors and catastrophic accidents,” plead the authors of the report.
As it stands, though, it wouldn’t be possible to create a pandemic, just by getting one of these printers. “The tools exist, and the printers make things simpler, but we are not yet talking about making viruses in your garage. Once the DNA has been created, it must be inoculated into the cells. This process requires parastatal means “, nuance Jean-François Lutz, researcher at the CNRS. This scientist works on projects for storing information on molecules similar to DNA. But in medicine as in innovation, prevention is better than cure: “Our mastery of the living is accelerating, the question will very quickly become more and more significant”, he admits.
For now, DNA printers can only produce relatively short strands. But, like the calculation capacities in computing, the tools are improving more and more quickly. In two to five years, the devices of DNA Script and consorts should be able to produce long strands of DNA of 5000 to 7000 nucleotides, the elementary molecules which constitute our genetic material. Enough to print the entire genome of some viruses. Hence the urgency of regulation, according to specialists. However, for the moment, only the United States has issued official recommendations concerning the use of DNA printers, and they date back to 2010…