To Protect Patented Genes, DARPA Wants a Security System that Records Genomic Changes

Wiki Commons

Clay Dillow
PopSci

Here at PopSci we love a good broad agency announcement from DARPA (that’s where they ask the private sector to do something technologically outrageous), but even next to the flying Humvees, the weather manipulation, the cyborg beetles, and the “hundred-year starships,” this one, we have to say, is WAY out there. DARPA wants a genetic security system that’s built into the genome that can monitor for and report on changes to an organism’s genetic makeup.

Or--to borrow Danger Room's metaphor--DARPA wants a “track changes” feature for genomes like the one that tracks edits in a Word document, a technology that will record and report any modification to a genome. They call it Chronicle of Lineage Indicative of Origins, or CLIO. We’re calling it ambitious.

First of all, why? DARPA ostensibly wants such a technology to protect intellectual property. Genomes (and specific genes) are now bio-commodities, and patented microbes and the genes therein are the property of those who create them.

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