Category: Uncategorized

PANDEMIC AGREEMENTS. "A special pandemic-prevention agreement was hammered out and approved by the World Health Assembly ... in 2011. But by 2012, fewer than 35 countries had managed to comply ... and many samples of H5N1 and other pathogens of concern had yet to be shared with global authorities and databases." http://lnkd.in/dyGvsfW View in LinkedIn

VIRUSES: DARPA'S CLEAR TARGET OF BIOSECURITY. "According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in the past 20 years, out of the newly recognized pathogens that impact human and animal health, approximately 44 percent are viruses." http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Prophecy_(Pathogen_Defeat).aspx View in LinkedIn

DUAL USE RESEARCH AND PUBLICATION. "The December 2011 do-not-publish decision settled nothing and was reversed by the advisory board four months later. ... and a temporary moratorium on dual-use research on influenza viruses was eventually lifted. In early 2013, the National Institutes of Health issued a series ... guidelines for GOF research on flu viruses." http://lnkd.in/dyGvsfW View in LinkedIn

ONE DARPA GOAL IS BIOSECURITY. "If successful, CLIO will establish enduring control elements that protect against intentionally harmful genetic engineering ... The program will advance the field of synthetic biology with new insight into the design and behavior of biological systems." http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Chronicle_of_Lineage_Indicative_of_Origins_(CLIO).aspx View in LinkedIn

WHAT LEGISLATIVE REMEDIES do we have for the bioterrorism and biowarfare problems? Does our system of open publication help or hinder? Do multinational agreements have any value if covert R&D appears inevitable and verification is all but impossible in a day when information is the key, rather than the pathogens themselves? The following string of blogs looks lightly at these questions. View in LinkedIn

DARPA DOING ADVANCED RESEARCH. "Recent innovations in biotechnology have significantly reduced the cost, time, infrastructure and level of training required to manipulate genetic code and alter the behavior of an organism. Numerous defense missions could benefit from the resulting biotechnology capabilities." http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/DSO/Programs/Chronicle_of_Lineage_Indicative_of_Origins_(CLIO).aspx View in LinkedIn

BIO-TERRORISM LIKELY TO INCREASE. "In the future, as the price drops and the technology becomes more common place, criminals and terrorists will be able to exploit synthetic biology not only to drive large-scale outbreaks. They will also be able to create targeted attacks against a single individual based on his or her own unique biology." http://lnkd.in/dMrYX_T View in LinkedIn

CELL BASED VACCINES are emerging to replace chicken egg techniques which are antiquated and slow. "On November 20, 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the use of Flucelvax, which is the first U.S.-licensed (trivalent inactivated) influenza vaccine manufactured using cell culture technology." Good start. No more chicken eggs. http://www.cdc.gov/flu/protect/vaccine/cell-based.htm View in LinkedIn

RECENT CYBERATTACKS. "In the past 20 years, there have been plenty of instances of cybercrime and scyberespionage. But there have been only three and a half cyberattacks that could conceivably rise to the level of a cyberwar ... none of these engendered a genuine cyber crisis." http://lnkd.in/dD6ANtw View in LinkedIn

SIGN OF THE TIMES. "National Security Agency has implanted software in nearly 100,000 computers around the world that allows United States to conduct surveillance on those machines and can also create a digital highway for launching cyberattacks; program, code-named Quantum, uses secret radio frequency technology that enables it to enter and alter data in computers even if they are not connected to the Internet." http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/c/cyberwarfare/ View in LinkedIn