The continuing COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates the enduring potential for biological risks to cause disaster. Worryingly, these risks, and the scale of their consequences, may be growing over time as biotechnology progresses. In this biosecurity reading group, over the spring term we will aim to get up to speed with the situation as it stands, before discussing how we might use our careers to mitigate these risks.
- Location: Praed Street meeting room, St Mary's, Paddington
- Time: Friday, 12:00 - 13:00
The reading group will run for eight weeks (beginning w/c 24th January) and will be closely based upon the EA Cambridge Biosecurity Seminar Program with some minor editing.
We will meet each week for an hour to discuss a selection of readings.
Lunch will be provided (thank you to the CEA for funding!).
If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch with me via email at ath19@ic.ac.uk.
If you'd like to take part, please register your interest here or send me an email, and I will add you to our Teams channel!
| Week starting | Topic |
|---|---|
| 24th Jan | Pandemics and bioweapons |
| 31st Jan | Biosafety |
| 7th Feb | Gain-of-function research |
| 14th Feb | Dual-use research of concern |
| 21st Feb | Information hazards and the unilateralist curse |
| 28th Feb | Pandemic prevention and diagnostics |
| 7th March | Pandemic response |
| 14th March | Career opportunities |
Pandemics can roughly be divided into those occurring naturally and those which are synthetically engineered. In this first session we will discuss the history of pandemics, as well as the ability of humanity to both respond to and create biological disasters.
- Emerging Infections: Microbial Threats to Health in the United States - Ledberg et al. (2008)
- Section: "Background; Plague, Influenza, & Optimism and Indifference" (pages 16-26)
- History of biological warfare and bioterrorism - Barras & Greub (2014)
- Section: "Biological Warfare: A Classic Tool of Armies"
- Biological agents could be used both by states and by non-state actors as a weapon
- The Precipice - Toby Ord (2020)
- Section: "Pandemics" (Chapter 5: pages 124-138)
- "The Precipice" refers to a period of time, beginning with the advent of nuclear weapons, where humanity has the power to destroy itself, without the wisdom to ensure that we won't
Further suggestions are available here.
Biosafety refers to precautions taken when handling potentially dangerous microorganisms. What biosaftey regulation exists, and how successful is it at containing infectious microorganisms?
- Biosafety levels 1, 2, 3, 4 - Lab Manager (2010)
- This reading is about the four biosafety levels designed for working with agents of varying danger levels
- Revealed: 100 safety breaches at UK labs handling potentially deadly diseases - The Guardian (2014)
- Despite regulation, it's inevitable that humans make errors.
- Professor Brian G Spratt (Imperial): "What strikes me is that accidents do happen even in the best facilities, often due to operator error, or unrecognised breakdowns in containment measures."
- How to make sure the labs researching the most dangerous pathogens are safe and secure - The Bulletin (July 2021)
- Improving Security through International Biosafety Norms - Gronvall et al. (2016)
Further suggestions are available here.
Gain-of-function is a type of research where organisms are genetically alters in ways which may enhance their biological function. Proponents of this research argue that it will help us to prepare for mutations which may occur naturally. However, its critics believe that the risks posed by gain-of-function may outweigh any supposed benefits.
- Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Experiments in Potentially Pandemic Pathogens - Lipsitch and Smith (2015)
- A pseduo-debate between Marc Lipsitch and Derek Smith on gain-of-function
- Alternative, if you prefer reading, is Why Do Exceptionally Dangerous Gain-of-Function Experiments in Influenza? - Lipsitch (2018)
- “Designer bugs”: how the next pandemic might come from a lab - Bressler and Bakerlee (2018)
- Optional: The De Novo Synthesis of Horsepox Virus: Implications for Biosecurity and Recommendations for Preventing the Reemergence of Smallpox - Koblentz GD (2017)
Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) is life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies 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, material, or national security. - NIH
Current rapid progress in synthetic biology has the potential to do a great deal of good: in health, manufacturing, climate, agriculture. This week we'll talk about the ways in which this well-intended research may be misappropriated to cause harm.
- Benefits & Risks of Biotechnology, FLI
- Biodefense in the Age of Synthetic Biology (2018)
- Sections: Summary (pages 1-8), Introduction (pages 9-15), Implications of the Age of Synthetic Biology (pages 18-21), Framework for assessing concern about synthetic biology capabilities (pages 23-31), Assessment of concern related to pathogens (pages 57-58)
- Information hazards: A typology of potential harms from knowledge - Bostrom (2011)
- Sections: Abstract, Introduction, Risks from development and Discussion
- Information Hazards in Biotechnology - Lewis et al. (2018)
- Bioinfohazards - Fin (2019)
Hi! I'm Adam, a third year PhD in the maths department working on HIV surveillance. I'm organising this reading group because I'd like to learn more about biosecurity, and reading groups are a good way to force yourself to actually learn something! I'd particularly like to see if the disease surveillance skills I'm (hopefully) picking up during my PhD could somehow be applied to reducing the chance of there being a global catastrophic biological disaster.