Recent News

By Category: Research

NSABB reverses recommendation on H5N1 studies

(CIDRAP News) – A federal advisory board today reversed its stance on publishing two controversial H5N1 transmission papers today, recommending that both studies be published in full. The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) met yesterday and today to discuss revised versions of the studies by two groups, one from the University of Wisconsin, Read More »

April 2, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biosafety, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Billions to Stem an Unlikely Bioterror Attack

(The Fiscal Times) Tens of billions of dollars have been poured into basic science and applied research to develop vaccines and drugs to combat diseases like anthrax, smallpox (a disease that no longer occurs naturally on earth), botulism and plague.

March 30, 2012
| Filed under North America, Bioterrorism, Countermeasures, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Policy On High-Risk Biological Research Tightened

(NPR – Audio) The Obama administration has announced a new policy to handle the risks posed by legitimate biological research that could, in the wrong hands, threaten the public. The move comes in response to a huge debate over recent experiments on bird flu virus that got funding from the National Institutes of Health. Critics Read More »

March 30, 2012
| Filed under North America, Biosafety, Bioterrorism, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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Dual use education in neuroscience

(The Royal Society – Blog) Dealing with the challenge of the hostile exploitation of neurobiology, as with a number of developments in the life sciences and chemistry, is going to require a range of activities at different levels; one aspect of which involves building awareness of the concerns of the security community amongst those at Read More »

March 30, 2012
| Filed under Europe, North America, Biotechnology, Countermeasures, International, Policy & Initiatives, and Research
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US Requires New Dual-Use Biological Research Reviews

(Science AAAS) The new DURC policy—months in the making, and in part a reaction to the ongoing controversy over research involving the H5N1 avian flu viruses—will expand current reviews already conducted by two major biomedical research funding agencies, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Both agencies Read More »