ArticlePLoS pathogens2018
Inoculating science against potential pandemics and information hazards.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 33 citations in OpenAlex.
- Defining the molecular interaction between influenza hemagglutinin and MHC-II.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Functional and antigenic constraints on the Nipah virus fusion protein.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Protein engineering: status report.Protein engineering, design & selection : PEDS · 2026Review
- Functional and antigenic constraints on the Nipah virus fusion protein.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Red-teaming as an imperative for strengthening synthetic nucleic acid screening.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2026Review
- Article
- Deep mutational scanning of H5 hemagglutinin to inform influenza virus surveillance.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Artificial intelligence-based prediction of pathogen emergence and evolution in the world of synthetic biology.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Review
- Deep mutational scanning reveals functional constraints and antibody-escape potential of Lassa virus glycoprotein complex.Immunity · 2024Article
- Annotation of Functions of Sequences of Concern and Its Relevance to the New Biosecurity Regulatory Framework in the United States.Applied biosafety : journal of the American Biological Safety Association · 2024Article
- Practical Questions for Securing Nucleic Acid Synthesis.Applied biosafety : journal of the American Biological Safety Association · 2024Article
- Deep mutational scanning reveals functional constraints and antigenic variability of Lassa virus glycoprotein complex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2024Article
- Review
- Biosecurity in an age of open science.PLoS biology · 2022Article
- Global policymakers and catastrophic risk.Policy sciences · 2022Article
- Article
- Genetic Engineering and Synthetic Genomics in Yeast to Understand Life and Boost Biotechnology.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Review
- Next Steps for Access to Safe, Secure DNA Synthesis.Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology · 2019Article
- COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, and Export Controls.Health securityArticle
- Who Should We Fear More: Biohackers, Disgruntled Postdocs, or Bad Governments? A Simple Risk Chain Model of Biorisk.Health securityArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The recent de novo assembly of horsepox is an instructive example of an information hazard: published methods enabling poxvirus synthesis led to media coverage spelling out the implications, efficiently disseminating true information that might be used to cause harm. Whether or not the benefits justified the risks, the horsepox saga provides ample reason to upgrade the current system for screening synthesized DNA for hazardous sequences, which does not cover the majority of firms and cannot reliably prevent the assembly of potentially pandemic pathogens. An upgraded system might leverage one-way encryption to confidentially scrutinize virtually all commercial production by a cooperative international network of servers whose integrity can be verified by third parties. Funders could support participating institutions to ease the transition or outright subsidize the market to make clean DNA cheaper, while boycotts by journals, institutions, and funders could ensure compliance and require hardware-level locks on future DNA synthesizers. However, the underlying problem is that security and safety discussions among experts typically follow potentially hazardous events rather than anticipating them. Changing norms and incentives to favor preregistration and advisory peer review of planned experiments could test alternatives to the current closeted research model in select areas of science. Because the fields of synthetic mammalian virology and especially gene drive research involve technologies that could be unilaterally deployed and may self-replicate in the wild, they are compelling candidates for initial trials of early-stage peer review.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.