Following a recipe downloaded from the Internet and using gene sequences from a mail-order supply house, researchers have assembled a manmade version of the polio virus to prove how easy it would be for terrorists to make deadly biological weapons.
Researchers at the University of New York at Stony Brook assembled the virus and then injected it into mice to show that it worked. The animals were paralyzed and then killed.
"The reason we did it was to prove that it can be done and it now is a reality," said Dr. Eckard Wimmer, leader of the biomedical research team and co-author of the study appearing Friday in the journal Science.
"This approach has been talked about, but people didn't take it seriously," Wimmer said. "Now people have to take it seriously. Progress in biomedical research has its benefits and it has its down side. There is a danger inherent to progress in sciences. This is a new reality, a new consideration."
