Q... "Judgement will be required to decide which applications of the research will be beneficial."

Indeed. My question/ponderance is, it appears that we cannot trust large corporations like Monsanto to use such judgement. It is quite apparent that they have not done so in many cases to date. Hence my "paranoia". I also have a conspiracy theory that I believe to be entirely possible but posting such even as simply an idea for consideration and discussion would only bring out trolls and stalkers as it is rather akin to Ian Fleming's fantasy lit.