13 Jul
2002
13 Jul
'02
12:02 p.m.
"Lucky Green" <shamrock@cypherpunks.to> quoted:
The feat proves that even if all the polio virus in the world were destroyed, it would be easily possible to resurrect the crippling disease. It also raises the worrying possibility that bioterrorists could use a similar approach to create devastating diseases such as ebola and smallpox without having to gain access to protected viral stocks.
I saw this on BBC news. It took a very sophisticated lab two years work to produce polio. They thought they might be able to do smallpox given about 20 years work. They even managed to slip in an Internet reference in the story. I guess "We synthesised polio from RNA" just isn't newsworthy enough on its own. Peter.