Fantastic comments as is always the case with you!
Yeah, these people in the industry are so wrapped up in their quest for profits that they likely don't even realize how insane it all sounds to us regular folks. It made me think of Dr. Strangelove, which i rewatched recently, and the pure madness of it all. The human mind is capable of rationalizing anything it seems. LOL, that movie is a classic, as is most of Kubrick's work.

(tangent - if you like Kubrick - You need to watch a documentary called - ROOM 237 - it's brilliant. Have you heard of it?)

How do you test pathogen detection systems? Where do you get snippets of DNA of organisms that are useful as agents of biological warfare? There's really only one way to do these things.

EXACTLY!!
This presents us with some uncomfortable questions, no doubt!

CRISPR tech really is some scary Sci-fi shit that's already being applied right now. For me, it's another one of those cases where technology is progressing at light speed yet the Ethical and philosophical questions associated with technological progress lag far behind. "Can we or how do we do 'X'?" is oft asked by technologists but rarely do they ask "should we?" ...