> What's the risk of lab leak?
I think you are latching onto the whole Sars-Cov2 concept here, but it is really a completely different situation. These lipid nanoparticles are highly unstable and require freezing, careful handling, etc. They include no amount of self replication machinery (nor any coded instructions for said machinery). There is nothing to "leak" per say. I am confident that the paper includes the specific formulations of lipids used, as well as the sequence of the payload (were it open access we could confirm).
> Can these particles go airborne?
Again, "go airborne" is a common fear with viruses. Can they mutate and gain some new function allowing them to be infectious via a new pathway. These lipid particles wont "go airborne" because they don't reproduce, they are under 0 evolutionary pressure and carry a minimal payload. It like asking if the COVID vaccine could mutate and go airborne. One could certainly spray some of these particles in the air, they will land on the nearest surface and likely break or degrade along the way. You could probably spray them on your arm and it would not result in any editing.
> If someone used them maliciously would anyone even figure it out?
If someone were able to successfully deploy a targeted genetic weapon with adverse side effects, it would likely take some time to figure out, but we absolutely have the ability and technology to figure it out today. The result would be a brand new variant in the population which has never been seen before, that looks like a CRISPR edit and is making a bunch of people of one country sick.
> Has everyone involved on this project been working in a lab that has made it near impossible for this to be abused and have all these people gone through exhaustive background and psychological testing and re-testing?
Almost certainly not. You are setting a bar pretty high for people doing pretty basic research in mice. I think we should probably setup this level of testing for all our police, military, elected officials, etc.
Citation 3 is the only one worth engaging with, and it answers most of these questions in the summary. Basically the tech is nowhere near ready (despite what some PLA general wants to pretend), and even if it was the actual targeting of a specific population is not even feasible given population genetics.
> Can these particles go airborne? Again, "go airborne" is a common fear with viruses. Can they mutate and gain some new function allowing them to be infectious via a new pathway. These lipid particles wont "go airborne" because they don't reproduce, they are under 0 evolutionary pressure and carry a minimal payload. It like asking if the COVID vaccine could mutate and go airborne. One could certainly spray some of these particles in the air, they will land on the nearest surface and likely break or degrade along the way. You could probably spray them on your arm and it would not result in any editing.
> If someone used them maliciously would anyone even figure it out? If someone were able to successfully deploy a targeted genetic weapon with adverse side effects, it would likely take some time to figure out, but we absolutely have the ability and technology to figure it out today. The result would be a brand new variant in the population which has never been seen before, that looks like a CRISPR edit and is making a bunch of people of one country sick.
> Has everyone involved on this project been working in a lab that has made it near impossible for this to be abused and have all these people gone through exhaustive background and psychological testing and re-testing? Almost certainly not. You are setting a bar pretty high for people doing pretty basic research in mice. I think we should probably setup this level of testing for all our police, military, elected officials, etc.
Citation 3 is the only one worth engaging with, and it answers most of these questions in the summary. Basically the tech is nowhere near ready (despite what some PLA general wants to pretend), and even if it was the actual targeting of a specific population is not even feasible given population genetics.