Featured Articles Archive
BW Issues in Depth
Emerging Dual-Use Technologies
Biological research conducted for defensive purposes relies on the same scientific principles and technology that could be used to develop offensive biological weapons. The difference between peaceful and hostile use of any technology, process, or instrument is that of intent, which is difficult, if not impossible, to measure. This dual-use phenomenon presents unique problems for balancing scientific advancement against measures to prevent the development of biological weapons.
In 2005, concern over how advances in life science research and development might enable the emergence of new biological threats led to the formation of the Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of their Application to Next Generation Warfare Threats, an ad hoc committee of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. This committee was charged with examining current trends and the future objectives of life science research that could lead to new biological threats within five to ten years. The Committee also sought to identify ways to anticipate, identify, and mitigate these dangers. Its findings and recommendations were published in a 2006 report entitled, Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of the Life Sciences (available online at: www.nap.edu ).
Given the unpredictable nature of research and technological change, the Committee agreed that it is difficult, if not, impossible, to describe in definite terms how the global technology landscape will look even a few years from now. Due to the rapid pace of current discoveries and advances in the life sciences, any specific list of technologies with the potential to contribute to biological threats would quickly become obsolete. Alternatively, the Committee sought to define more broadly how continuing advances in life science technologies could contribute to the development of new biological threats, and to develop a logical framework for evaluating the evolving technology threat spectrum. In so doing, the Committee identified categories of technologies with the potential for dual-use based on common purposes, common conceptual underpinnings, and common technical enabling platforms defined as follows:
- Acquisition of novel biological or molecular diversity – technologies driven by efforts to acquire or synthesize novel biological or molecular diversity, or a greater range of specificity, so that a user can subsequently select what is most useful from a larger, newly acquired diversity pool. High-throughput screening techniques, such as microarrays, are critical enabling platforms for these technologies. Examples include DNA synthesis, DNA shuffling, and bioprospecting.
- Directed design – technologies involving deliberate efforts to generate novel but predetermined and specific biological or molecular diversity. Examples include synthetic biology and rational drug design.
- Understanding and manipulation of biological systems – technologies driven by efforts to gain a more complete understanding of complex biological systems and an ability to manipulate such systems. Examples include systems biology, gene silencing (RNA interference), computational biology, and bioinformatics.
- Production, delivery, and packaging – technologies driven by efforts in the pharmaceutical, agriculture, and healthcare sectors to improve capabilities for producing, re-engineering, or delivering biological or biologically-derived products and miniaturizing these processes. Examples include biopharming, nanotechnology, microencapsulation, and gene therapy.
- endorse and affirm policies and practices that, to the maximum extent possible, promote the free and open exchange of information in the life sciences;
- adopt a broader perspective on the “threat spectrum;”
- strengthen and enhance the scientific and technical expertise within and across the security communities;
- adopt and promote a common culture of awareness and a shared sense of responsibility within the global community of life scientists; and
- strengthen the public health infrastructure and existing response and recovery capabilities.
Product Catalog