- A New York Times Magazine article (“The Gene Drive Dilemma: We Can Alter Entire Species, but Should We”) was circulated; participants highlighted its pro-information, anti-patent stance and debated the practicality of “wiping out” wild mosquito populations versus preserving laboratory colonies.

- Concerns were raised that Wolbachia-based gene drives give only a single chance at success; if the wild population rebounds or if incompatible drives are deployed in overlapping regions, both efforts could be ruined.

- Longevity research links shared included a Cell Reports paper on “Translational regulation of non-autonomous mitochondrial stress response promotes longevity” and an NIH-PMC study showing synergistic lifespan extension in C. elegans with combined daf-2 and rsks-1 mutations.

- Discussion turned to synthetic virology: horsepox was synthesized for ~$100 k as a smallpox model, demonstrating that the variola genome could likely be recreated from sequence; only two official smallpox virus samples are retained worldwide.

- A public archive of viral genomes (https://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/bio/genomes/viruses/) was offered for reference, underscoring the ease of access to pathogen sequences for legitimate research or misuse.