Aims and methods of biosteganography

Preservation and Encryption in DNA Digital Data Storage

The exponential growth of the total amount of global data presents a huge challenge to mainstream storage media. The emergence of molecular digital storage inspires the development of the new-generation higher-density digital data storage. In particular, DNA with high storage density, reproducibility, and long recoverable lifetime behaves the ideal representative of molecular digital storage media. With the development of DNA synthesis and sequencing technologies and the reduction of cost, DNA digital storage has attracted more and more attention and achieved significant breakthroughs. Herein, this Review briefly describes the workflow of DNA storage, and highlights the storage step of DNA digital data storage. Then, according to different information storage forms, the current DNA information encryption methods are emphatically expounded. Finally, the brief perspectives on the current challenges and optimizing proposals in DNA information preservation and encryption are presented.

Facing the 2020 pandemic: What does cyberbiosecurity want us to know to safeguard the future?

As the entire world is under the grip of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and as many are eagerly trying to explain the origins of the virus and cause of the pandemic, it is imperative to place more attention on related potential biosafety risks. Biology and biotechnology have changed dramatically during the last ten years or so. Their reliance on digitization, automation, and their cyber-overlaps have created new vulnerabilities for unintended consequences and potentials for intended exploitation that are mostly under-appreciated. This study summarizes and elaborates on these new cyberbiosecurity challenges, (1) in terms of comprehending the evolving threat landscape and determining new risk potentials, (2) in developing adequate safeguarding measures, their validation and implementation, and (3) specific critical risks and consequences, many of them unique to the life-sciences. Drawing other's expertise and my previous work, this article reviews and critically interprets our current bio-economy situation. The goal is not to attribute causative aspects of past biosafety or biosecurity events, but to highlight the fact that the bioeconomy harbors unique features that have to be more critically assessed for their potential to unintentionally cause harm to human health or environment, or to be re-tasked with an intention to cause harm. It is concluded with recommendations that will need to be considered to help ensure converging and emerging biorisk challenges, in order to minimize vulnerabilities to the life-science enterprise, public health, and national security.

Do cells use passwords in cell-state transitions? Is cell signaling sometimes encrypted?

Organisms must maintain proper regulation including defense and healing. Life-threatening problems may be caused by pathogens or by a multicellular organism's own cells through cancer or autoimmune disorders. Life evolved solutions to these problems that can be conceptualized through the lens of information security, which is a well-developed field in computer science. Here I argue that taking an information security view of cells is not merely semantics, but useful to explain features of signaling, regulation, and defense. An information security perspective also offers a conduit for cross-fertilization of advanced ideas from computer science and the potential for biology to inform computer science. First, I consider whether cells use passwords, i.e., initiation sequences that are required for subsequent signals to have effects, by analyzing the concept of pioneer transcription factors in chromatin regulation and cellular reprogramming. Second, I consider whether cells may encrypt signal transduction cascades. Encryption could benefit cells by making it more difficult for pathogens or oncogenes to hijack cell networks. By using numerous molecules, cells may gain a security advantage in particular against viruses, whose genome sizes are typically under selection pressure. I provide a simple conceptual argument for how cells may perform encryption through posttranslational modifications, complex formation, and chromatin accessibility. I invoke information theory to provide a criterion of an entropy spike to assess whether a signaling cascade has encryption-like features. I discuss how the frequently invoked concept of context dependency may oversimplify more advanced features of cell signaling networks, such as encryption. Therefore, by considering that biochemical networks may be even more complex than commonly realized we may be better able to understand defenses against pathogens and pathologies.

CRISPR as a driving force: the Model T of biotechnology

The CRISPR system for gene editing can break, repair, and replace targeted sections of DNA. Although CRISPR gene editing has important therapeutic potential, it raises several ethical concerns. Some bioethicists worry CRISPR is a prelude to a dystopian future, while others maintain it should not be feared because it is analogous to past biotechnologies. In the scientific literature, CRISPR is often discussed as a revolutionary technology. In this paper we unpack the framing of CRISPR as a revolutionary technology and contrast it with framing it as a value-threatening biotechnology or business-as-usual. By drawing on a comparison between CRISPR and the Ford Model T, we argue CRISPR is revolutionary as a product, process, and as a force for social change. This characterization of CRISPR offers important conceptual clarity to the existing debates surrounding CRISPR. In particular, conceptualizing CRISPR as a revolutionary technology structures regulatory goals with respect to this new technology. Revolutionary technologies have characteristic patterns of implementation, entrenchment, and social impact. As such, early identification of technologies as revolutionary may help construct more nuanced and effective ethical frameworks for public policy.