• Pentagon Overhauls Chem-Bio Defense

    DOD last week said it was overhauling its approach to countering chemical and biological weapons. Rather than continuing to focus on developing countermeasures for a specific list of threat agents, the Pentagon will develop measures that can adapt to a range of evolving biological and chemical threats.

  • Yeast Material Developed for Training First Responders on Biothreats

    First responders who train for emergencies involving threats from biological agents such as bacterial or viral pathogens, need to do so in a safe and careful manner. To help meet their needs, researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a reference material based on yeast cells.

  • Achieving Foundational Security for Food Systems

    U.S. cereal crops such as corn, rice, and wheat feed hundreds of millions of Americans and millions more around the world. Ensuring active defense of these and other staple food grasses is a critical national security priority. New DARPA project seeks advanced threat-detection and warning capabilities for crop defense.

  • A Growing Threat: Deliberate, Simultaneous Release of Pandemic Viruses Across Travel Hubs

    COVID-19 demonstrated how the world is clearly vulnerable to the introduction of a single pandemic virus with a comparatively low case fatality rate. The deliberate and simultaneous release of many pandemic viruses across travel hubs could threaten the stability of civilization. Current trends suggest that within a decade, tens of thousands of skilled individuals will be able to access the information required for them single-handedly to cause new pandemics.

  • Bolstering Biosafety Education to Address Biosecurity Professionals Shortfalls

    Many countries face an severe shortages of biosafety and biosecurity professionals. To address these shortages, experts call for a multisectoral effort toward a future sustainable workforce by formalizing a biosafety & biosecurity career path within the higher education system.

  • Strengthening U.S. Government’s Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen Framework, Dual Use Research

    Group of scientists, public health experts, policy researchers propose strengthening of U.S. government’s policies regarding enhanced potential pandemic pathogen framework and dual use research of concern.

  • Would Russia Use Bioweapons in Ukraine?

    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.

  • The Pandemic: Implications for Terrorist Interest in Biological Weapons

    What if the IS or al-Qaeda obtained and spread a highly contagious virus in a community or country that they sought to punish? With the pandemic highlighting weaknesses in response efforts, will these groups now seek to obtain infectious viruses to achieve these same deadly results?

  • Reforming 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.

  • Gain-of-Function Studies Need Stricter Guidance: Researchers

    Researchers and biosecurity specialists are calling on the U.S. government to issue clearer guidance about experiments the government might fund which would make pathogens more transmissible or deadly.

  • As 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.

  • Russia's Claims of Ukrainian Biological Weapons: A Propaganda Ploy?

    Since its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has claimed Kyiv is developing biological weapons with support from the US and Germany. Experts familiar with laboratories in Ukraine say the accusations are groundless.

  • Artificial Intelligence and Chemical and Biological Weapons

    A recent article in Nature offers a disturbing look at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the creation of chemical and biological weapons. “Anyone unfamiliar with recent innovations in the use of AI to model new drugs will be unpleasantly surprised,” Paul Rosenzweig writes. “The benefits of these innovations are clear. Unfortunately, the possibilities for malicious uses are also becoming clear.”

  • Current and Future Challenges to National Biodefense

    The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense met to discuss the expanding landscape of current and future biological threats, the roles and responsibilities of the federal government in assessing and preparing for various biological threats, and biological weapons, bioterrorism, and biological arms races with the public.

  • Tracing the Path of Pathogens after Large-Scale Contamination with Biological Agents

    To respond quickly to contamination with a biological agent near a major coastal city, DHS ST and partners have examined the movement of pathogen’ spores, which may be carried downstream by runoff after rainstorms, thereby complicating mitigation and decontamination measures.