Dual-Use Research Debates and Public Health: Better Integration Would Do No Harm

[摘要] The rapid pace of discovery in the life-sciences can have profound implications for public health, and the focus of much deliberation in recent years has been on how best to ensure that they are positive and not negative. A key focus of debate has been on dual-use research of concern (DURC), which has been defined as life-science research that “could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops, and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel, or national security (1).” Debates such as the one that surrounded gain-of-function (GOF) research on avian influenza have led to many existential questions about contemporary life-science research, including whether or not such research should even be conducted in the first place, what viable alternative experimental approaches exist, if or how the findings should be made public, and how – or whether – such research can be governed (2–6).

[学科分类] 卫生学

[关键词] laboratory biosafety;Public Health;infectious diseases;dual-use research of concern;biosecurity;laboratory biorisk management;risk assessments