• PLUM ISLANDBipartisan Effort to Make Plum Island a National Monument Advances in Congress

    Plum Island, off the north-eastern coast of Long Island, has been, since 1954, home to a high-security biolab researching pathogens threatening humans and animals. The lab has been relocated to Manhattan, Kansas. A bill calling on the Department of the Interior to consider adding Plum Island to the National Park system is advancing in Congress.

  • BIOLABSConstruction of New Level-4 Biolab in Manhattan, Kansas Completed

    The new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) in Manhattan, Kansas replaces the old Plum Island, New York biolab. The NBAF is the first U.S. laboratory with biosafety level-4 containment, capable of housing large livestock animals; and one of only a few facilities in the world with these capabilities.

  • ARGUMENT: SAFER VIROLOGICAL RESEARCHWe Could Easily Make Risky Virological Research Safer

    Lab Accidents happen, and they aren’t especially rare. A new book — appropriately titled Pandora’s Gamble — offers a shocking accounting of the problem, identifying more than a thousand accidents reported to federal regulators from 2008 to 2012. David Wallace-Wells, referring to the recommendations from the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity on how to minimize the risks from research biolabs, writes: “These suggestions would not eliminate the risk of lab accidents, but they would reduce the risk — and fairly simply.”

  • BIOSECURITYNIST Releases Bioeconomy Lexicon

    Biosecurity, bioenergy, bioinspired, biorisk: If you have ever started to feel like the new trend in security jargon is adding “bio” to an already existing word, then NIST’s Bioeconomy Lexicon  is for you.

  • PLUM ISLANDPlum Island One Step Closer to Permanent Preservation

    Plum Island is one step closer to permanent preservation. Plum Island is currently owned by the United States government and has been home to the Plum Island Animal Disease Center for nearly 70 years. The Department of Homeland Security is in the process of excessing the island, opening it up for transfer to another entity.

  • BIOWEAPONSWould Russia Use Bioweapons in Ukraine?

    By Jasmine Latimore

    In March, claims from the Kremlin of a U.S.-funded bioweapon program in Ukraine flooded global media. Those reports were amplified by China and picked up by conservative news outlets and conspiracy groups in the U.S. U.S. warned that Russia could be using this thread of disinformation to stage a false-flag incident using bioweapons, or to justify the use of its own bioweapons against Ukraine. It wouldn’t have been the first time Russia used false-flag tactics, and the threat of Russia using bioweapons in either scenario isn’t an outlandish prospect.

  • ARGUMENT: DHS & BIODEFENSEReforming DHS’s Biodefense Operations and Governance

    Today’s biological threats show no signs of desisting any time soon. Naturally occurring outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, and laboratory accidents pose a growing challenge – while the number of high-containment laboratories and amount of dangerous research continues to increase unabated. “DHS, as chief among those federal departments and agencies responsible for securing the homeland, must overcome its current state of fractionation and demonstrate to the rest of the government, country, and world that it is capable of coordinating and leading efforts in biodefense and other arenas,” Carrie Cordero and Asha M. George write.

  • BIORISKSAs Science Evolves, Policy Framework Needs to as Well

    In late February, the NIH and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy asked the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity NSABB to make swift progress on its long-overdue review. The panel plans to draft a report outlining its recommendations by the end of the year.

  • ARGUMENT: Risky BusinessCreating Dangerous Viruses in the Lab Is a Bad Way to Guard against future Pandemics

    In 2011, three top U.S. government scientists — Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Francis Collins, the head of NIH, and Gary Nabel, then a top official at Fauci’s institute – wrote that given the uncertainties regarding the emergence of new, pandemic-causing pathogens, “important information and insights can come from generating a potentially dangerous virus in the laboratory.” Laura H. Kahn writes that “There are other less risky ways of preventing pandemics than conducting gain-of-function research on pathogens.”

  • BiosecurityImproving Safety in Labs Dealing with Lethal Viruses

    Biosafety-Level (BSL) 4 laboratories undertake hazardous research into lethal viruses to improve our understanding of diseases such as Ebola and Lassa Fever and to better prepare the world against new and emerging diseases. But these activities pose significant risks. Surges in the number of labs and an expansion in the high-risk research carried out within them have exacerbated safety and security risks.

  • ARGUMENT: Improving BiosecurityTwenty Years After the Patriot Act, What Is the Future of Biosecurity?

    The USA Patriot Act was signed into law twenty20 years ago, on 26 October 2001. Yong-Bee Lim, David Gillum, and Kathleen Vogel write Many changes have taken place since 2001, and  “The Patriot Act’s top-down approach cannot fully address this emerging reality, the authors write. Despite twenty years of effort, some old biosecurity issues continue to plague the country, while a whole new biosecurity frontier is opening up.”

  • BiolabsReporting All Biosafety Errors Could Improve Labs Worldwide – and Increase Public Trust in Biological Research

    By David Gillum, Kathleen Vogel, and Rebecca Moritz

    Around the world, scientists conduct many kinds of biological research experiments – from basic studies exploring how living systems operate to synthesizing novel organisms. The idea that a pathogen could escape from a laboratory and infect the entire world is the stuff of horror movies. Working with biological materials does have inherent risks, and laboratory incidents will happen – the goal is to minimize risks to laboratory personnel, the community and the environment.

  • BioweaponsCalifornia Biosecurity Bill Safeguards Bioeconomy and Public Health

    Biosecurity experts say that California has the opportunity to reduce the risk posed by synthetic smallpox — and other novel biological threats —while keeping California’s bioeconomy innovative and strong.

  • COVID-19 originsU.S. Intelligence Community's Report Inconclusive on COVID-19 Origins

    In May, the U.S. intelligence community (IC) was tasked by President Joe Biden to investigate the origins of CVID-19. On Tuesday, the IC delivered its assessment to the White House. The IC report is inconclusive, offering no definitive answer to the question of whether COVID-19 jumped to humans naturally, or was released from a lab.

  • Gain-of-function researchWhy Gain-of-Function Research Matters

    By David Gillum and Rebecca Moritz

    There are unanswered questions about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic, so both the U.S. government and scientists have called for a deeper examination of the validity of claims that a virus could have escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China. Much of the discussion surrounds “gain-of-function” research. What is gain-of-function research? What are the benefits of this research, and how risky is it?