Five years ago, we were taken aback at how quickly a new viral pneumonia could turn into a global pandemic, and decimate the elderly, and those with compromised immune systems, or underlying illnesses that made them vulnerable.

And yet, even then, we had decades of experience, virtually a century, of dealing with viral and bacterial epidemics and infectious outbreaks. Not only had we almost eradicated several killer diseases with vaccines, we had advanced biotech tools like CRISPR which had the potential to edit the genes of babies and adults alike.

If only we could experiment freely on humans – there’s the problem. With CRISPR, the most invasive trials with adults were limited attempts to reverse blindness, with some success. It was definitely possible to introduce modified genes into living humans to treat disease.

Unfortunately for those struck down by coronavirus, it just took too long to develop these capabilities in the face of a novel threat; not just the science, but also the regulations and protocols. And all efforts were focused on a vaccine, rather than directly tinkering with the immune system.

Since then, we’ve come to understand how the immune system can be programmed like software, and given genetic code to produce uniquely powerful antibodies, instead of leaving it up to nature. Rather than injecting a weakened threat in the form of a vaccine and letting our body’s defenses evolve a response, which takes time and often overreacts, just instruct the system to build super antibodies immediately!

Thanks to billionaire benefactors, who saw the economic havoc created by the last global lockdown, this breakthrough technology has been open-sourced and made available to everyone. Now we can all have designer genes, and beat the next ‘invisible enemy’ with our own SWAT team.