Safety by design: Biosafety and biosecurity in the age of synthetic genomics

Technologies to profoundly engineer biology are becoming increasingly afford-able, powerful, and accessible to a widening group of actors. While offering tremendous potential to fuel biological research and the bioeconomy, this devel-opment also increases the risk of inadvertent or deliberate creation and dissem-ination of pathogens. Effective regulatory and technological frameworks need to be developed and deployed to manage these emerging biosafety and biosecurity risks. Here, we review digital and biological approaches of a range of technology readiness levels suited to address these challenges. Digital sequence screening technologies already are used to control access to synthetic DNA of concern. We examine the current state of the art of sequence screening, challenges and future directions, and environmental surveillance for the presence of engineered organisms. As biosafety layer on the organism level, we discuss genetic biocon-tainment systems that can be used to created host organisms with an intrinsic bar-rier against unchecked environmental proliferation.

Automated summary

Technologies in biotechnology are advancing rapidly, offering great potential for biological research and the bioeconomy, but also increasing the risk of accidental or deliberate creation and spread of pathogens. It is crucial to develop and implement regulatory and technological frameworks to manage these emerging biosafety and biosecurity risks. This article reviews digital and biological approaches at different technology readiness levels that can address these challenges, including sequence screening technologies and genetic biocontainment systems.