The United States “could face disaster in the near future” due to synthetic biology overseas that could be used for biological warfare, three security researchers wrote in an opinion piece published by The Washington Post on Monday.

The opinion piece was written by Matt Pottinger, the deputy national security adviser in the Trump administration and head of the geopolitical research firm Garnaut Global, Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House COVID-19 response coordinator during the Biden administration, and Matthew McKnight, Ginkgo Bioworks’ head of biosecurity and a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center.

The authors contend that although the U.S. led a movement to ban the use and research of biological weapons, new developments in synthetic biology “breakthroughs in gene-editing technology and artificial intelligence have made the manipulation and production of deadly viruses and bacteria easier than ever.”

Read more at Newsmax© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.