From Cloning Monkeypox Genome to Editing Human DNA, Is Synthetic Biology a Double-Edged Sword?

From Cloning Monkeypox Genome to Editing Human DNA, Is Synthetic Biology a Double-Edged Sword?
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Xiaoxu Sean Lin
Updated:
In the June 2022 issue of Virologica Sinica, researchers at Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) published a paper that said WIV efficiently assembled a large fragment of the monkeypox virus genome for the purpose of developing a PCR test for monkeypox.

This WIV article is not particularly eye-catching at the first glance, but it does raise doubts when one thinks about its objective and approaches.

Xiaoxu Sean Lin is an assistant professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Feitian College in Middletown, New York. He is also a frequent analyst and commentator for Epoch Media Group, VOA, and RFA. He is a veteran who served as a U.S. Army microbiologist and also a member of Committee on the Present Danger: China.
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