https://www.economist.com/what-if/2021/07/03/what-if-biohackers-injected-themselves-with-mrna

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What If?Jul 3rd 2021 edition

Freedom to tinker: October 2029
What if biohackers injected themselves with mRNA?

Members of the Witnesses of Bioinformatic Freedom, a
biohacking-rights group, demand the right to alter their own biology.
An imagined scenario from 2029

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Jul 3rd 2021

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Editor's note: This year What If?, our annual collection of
scenarios, considers the future of health. Each of these stories is
fiction, but grounded in historical fact, current speculation and real
science. They do not present a unified narrative but are set in
different possible futures

TO UNDERSTAND THE controversy around the Witnesses of Bioinformatic
Freedom (WBF), a biohacktivist group, cast your mind back to the
coronavirus pandemic a decade ago. Within days of the discovery of
the SARS-CoV-2 virus in 2019, its genome had been sequenced and used
to create prototype vaccines containing molecules of messenger RNA,
or mRNA. Hundreds of millions of people were injected with these
artificial mRNA molecules, which instructed the protein-producing
machinery inside the body's cells to make a "spike" protein,
identical to that found on the virus's surface. The resulting spike
proteins then triggered an immune response, priming the recipient's
immune system so that it could recognise and fight off the virus if
required to do so.

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The same mRNA technology had been used in the 2010s to develop
experimental vaccines for other diseases, including Zika virus and
Ebola. But the power of mRNA was demonstrated on a global scale
during the pandemic, paving the way for other treatments in the
2020s. Like the vaccines, these use carefully crafted mRNA messages
to boost temporarily the production of needed proteins, or inhibit
the production of harmful ones--a technique often likened to using the
patient's own cellular machinery as an on-demand drug factory. This
approach is now used to treat cancer, heart disease and neurological
disorders.

The story of that medical revolution has been widely told. Less well
known is the parallel story that has been unfolding alongside it.
During the pandemic, new technologies, infrastructure and supply
chains were created to manufacture mRNA vaccines at vast scale, while
also allowing their mRNA payloads to be quickly and easily tweaked as
new variants emerged. Once covid-19 was brought under control and
demand for vaccines subsided, some of that infrastructure began to be
put to new and unexpected uses.

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The possibility of using mRNA for self-enhancement first emerged in
2024, after the Paris Olympics. In 2012, Katalin Kariko and Drew
Weissman, two of the main actors in the intellectual development of
therapeutic mRNA, had shown that carefully designed mRNA molecules
could transiently raise the level of erythropoietin (EPO), a protein
hormone which stimulates production of red blood cells, in mice. More
EPO means more red blood cells, which means more oxygen delivered to
working muscles, which improves physical performance. In the months
after the Paris Olympics rumours began to circulate that some
competitors had been taking regular injections of EPO-producing mRNA.
But the tests available failed to show conclusive evidence of foul
play. New tests were then developed in time for the 2028 games.

Meanwhile, a group of biology doctoral students at the University of
Belgrade began producing and distributing an mRNA molecule said to
enhance learning abilities by boosting the synthesis of small
proteins involved in memory formation. The government launched an
investigation after a student, Luka Dragotin, died of a mysterious
autoimmune complaint in 2025. The test scores of the students who had
been dosing themselves with mRNA did seem to have risen relative to
those of their peers. The doctoral students went to prison for 15
years, and the government imposed strict new regulations on mRNA
technology.

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The following year Wired, a technology-news outlet, published a story
about a group of mothers in Austin, Texas, who had dosed themselves
with mRNA molecules during pregnancy. The treatment was said to keep
their production of thyroid hormones within the optimal window for
neurological development in utero, thus maximising the cognitive
capacity of their offspring. None of the mothers suffered any
complications in pregnancy, and the mRNA-dosed children all turned
out to be healthy. But there was an outcry from evangelical
Christians and right-wing politicians who denounced "meddling" with
biology. In 2027 the federal government banned self-dosing with mRNA
and set up a Senate committee to investigate the use and misuse of
the technology.

It was at this point that the WBF, a group championing biohackers'
rights, stepped onto the public stage. It declared in its manifesto
that people had the right to send genetic messages of their own
making to their own cells. WBF members, it emerged, had documented
successful mRNA dosing for alertness, minor tweaks to physiology
(such as to prevent hair loss), and suppression of stress hormones.
It was, they argued, already too late for governments to stop them.

The group has since turned out to have members and sympathisers
throughout the research community, who have helped refine the process
of delivering messages to human cells. Needles and syringes are no
longer required. Biohackers have built small patches of flexible
electronics and microfluidics, worn on the body much like a nicotine
patch, capable of crafting specific mRNA sequences in situ and
inserting them into the bloodstream. New sequences can be beamed to
the patch from a smartphone or computer.

A flourishing open-source ecosystem has developed around the designs
of the patches and the molecules they can produce. New mRNA molecules
are usually released to a select group of alpha testers, and made
widely available only after the alpha testers have granted approval.
Not all mRNA molecules are therapeutics or enhancements; the
fastest-growing category is for molecules that offer transient,
drug-like experiences, supposedly with no long-term side-effects.

Some doctors are said to be quietly dabbling in mRNA hacking
themselves, and even recommending it to patients. For their part,
drug companies have called for a clampdown on what they deride as
"amateur pharmaceuticals". They have also tried to have some
repositories of mRNA molecules taken offline, claiming violation of
intellectual property.

The question now is whether governments can put the genie back in the
bottle through concerted, co-ordinated action. Many politicians say
the power to tinker with biology is too dangerous to have in the
hands even just of doctors and must be regulated. Next month's global
meeting on the topic in Belgrade, the Dragotin Conference, will bring
together policymakers, medical experts and regulatory specialists.
Representatives from the WBF have not been invited. #

Full contents of this What If?
Freedom to tinker, October 2029: What if biohackers injected
themselves with mRNA?*
The other epidemic, June 2025: What if America tackled its opioid
crisis?
A tale of two cities, June 2041: What if a deadly heatwave hit India?
You are what you eat, January 2035: What if everyone's nutrition was
personalised?
iHealthy, September 2028: What if smartphones become personal health
assistants?
Mrs Chippy's benediction, February 2055: What if marmosets lived on
the Moon?
Novel treatments, August 2050: What if dementia was preventable and
treatable?
Rage against the machine, December 2036: What if an AI wins the Nobel
prize for medicine?
Germ of an idea: What if germ theory had caught on sooner?

This article appeared in the What If? section of the print edition
under the headline "Freedom to tinker"

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