With mail-order DNA and more than 2 years of painstaking
work, researchers for the first time have assembled a virus from its chemical
code. The lab-built poliovirus, described
online this
week by Science, killed mice and was almost indistinguishable from the
original. Biologists disagree on how difficult it would be to construct far
bulkier viruses such as smallpox to create bioweapons.
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