The trillion-dollar question that online sharing of DNA poses

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Editor's note: Over a decade before the COVID-19 virus was detected, an organization began an ambitious project to track the various strains of the influenza virus across the world. The Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, or GISAID, has, over the years, managed to create a bank of genetic information on lethal viruses. All of this information is available on a digital portal, with the aim of making health data accessible to all.  This is a crucial resource. Using a genetic sequence from the GISAID database, one can learn about the spike protein on the virus’s surface and develop a vaccine to fight it.  “This spike protein is something that attaches to the human host,” explains Raj Rajnarayanan, assistant dean of research and associate professor, NYITCOM, at Arkansas State University. “So if you plot the spike, you block it from attaching to the host.” By 10 January 2020, when China uploaded the first genetic sequence of the novel coronavirus, GISAID featured over 5 million genetic sequences of viruses from around the world. Today, it is widely acknowledged that the information available …