The Pentagon’s research agency wants to explore the possibility of editing a soldier’s genetic makeup to protect against chemical and biological attacks.
It may sound like something torn from a page in a science fiction novel, but Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency director Steven Walker said Monday that he believes gene editing has the potential to be one of the most consequential technological advances for the U.S. military.
“Why is DARPA doing this? [To] protect a soldier on the battlefield from chemical weapons and biological weapons by controlling their genome — having the genome produce proteins that would automatically protect the soldier from the inside out,” Walker said during a panel at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“And so just the amount of technological change in that area and the … more capability we have to engineer biology for use is why I think its just the most exciting field right now.”
Historically, the military has sought to protect troops from chemical and biological weapons through protective gear and vaccines, but advances in gene therapy — which allows scientists to manipulate DNA — creates an opportunity to start with the human body itself. Gene manipulation could be a better solution to the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons when vaccines are hard to come by, Walker explained.
“We don’t have the capability yet, but that’s why you want to be able to actually have your body be the antibody factory, if possible,” he said.
In addition to learning how to manipulate genes, DARPA also wants to learn how to reverse the process in case something goes wrong. The agency’s “Safe Genes” program is designed to protect troops “from accidental or intentional misuse of genome editing technologies.” DARPA sees the program as part of its “mission to prevent technological surprise,” Walker said.
Preventing these surprises goes all the way back to DARPA’s founding in 1957 in response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. Today, the agency is working to prevent similar surprises from global competitors like China.
“I believe the best way to compete with our peer adversaries is to win those tech races for the 21st century,” Walker told the Washington Examiner.
To do that, Walker said the agency needs to keep open channels with the academic community, work with companies of all sizes, and continue to attract the best talent.
