Abstract
ABSTRACTThe COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the world’s vulnerability to biological catastrophe and elicited unprecedented scientific efforts. Some of this work and its derivatives, however, present dual-use risks (i.e., potential harm from misapplication of beneficial research) that have largely gone unaddressed. For instance, gain-of-function studies and reverse genetics protocols may facilitate the engineering of concerning SARS-CoV-2 variants and other pathogens. The risk of accidental or deliberate release of dangerous pathogens may be increased by large-scale collection and characterization of zoonotic viruses undertaken in an effort to understand what enables animal-to-human transmission. These concerns are exacerbated by the rise of preprint publishing that circumvents a late-stage opportunity for dual-use oversight. To prevent the next global health emergency, we must avoid inadvertently increasing the threat of future biological events. This requires a nuanced and proactive approach to dual-use evaluation throughout the research life cycle, including the conception, funding, conduct, and dissemination of research.
Highlights
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the world’s vulnerability to biological catastrophe and elicited unprecedented scientific efforts
Global health security leaders have cautioned that the COVID-19 pandemic may increase the threat from deliberate biological events, i.e., biosecurity risks, by potentially inspiring malicious actors [2,3,4]
These warnings come against the backdrop of existing global vulnerabilities to potential biosecurity risks, as both the WHO Joint External Evaluations and the inaugural 2019 Global Health Security Index have identified inadequate capacity and policies for biosecurity in the vast majority of countries [5, 6]
Summary
AArticles were counted if they included “SARS-CoV-2” OR “COVID-19” OR “Coronavirus 2019” OR “novel coronavirus” OR “2019-nCoV,” in title or abstract. A few of these studies constitute “gain-of-function” (GOF) experiments that have the potential to enhance the lethality and/or transmissibility of a virus These types of experiments deserve additional review given the associated dual-use risks but may have received less scrutiny due to the urgency of the pandemic and already widespread circulation of the pathogen in question. Promising may be preferential investment into mRNA-based vaccines which both exhibit excellent properties as fast response platforms and are associated with few dual-use risks [23, 28, 29] Another example of potentially concerning countermeasure research is the creation of transmissible vaccines for eradicating zoonotic pathogens, which has been advocated for with increased urgency in the wake of the pandemic [30, 31]. Such research would create unique incentives for engineering the transmissibility, genetic stability, and immune evasion of viruses and be associated with significant dual-use risks [32]
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