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CD258: Gain of Function Research

Congressional Dish

CHAPTER

Identifying Pandemic Viruses

Kevin Esvelt is an assistant professor at the MIT Media Lab Group where he leads the sculpting evolution group. He's credited as the first to describe how CRISPR gene drives could be used to alter the traits of wild populations in an evolutionary stable manner. USAID and NIH have funded research attempting to find or create novel pandemic-capable viruses all over the world. But they never considered that these advances in technology would allow a single-skilled terrorist to unleash more pandemics at once than would naturally occur in a century.

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