Safeguarding advances in the life sciences

Abstract

Enhancing public health and safety against biological threats arising from natural or man‐made causes is an overwhelming challenge for traditional governance structures. The rapid advances in the life sciences—although clearly bringing enormous benefits to public health—similarly raise concerns among governments, scientists and the public about potential risks and abuse. As seen in the 2003 SARS outbreak, increased transnational activities in trading, tourism and, in particular, air travel now allow infectious diseases to spread around the world in days. Ethical limits, owing to advances in such areas as genomics and stem‐cell research, are perceived to be under pressure. Similarly, security experts find it difficult to assess the potential implications of biological research, be it deliberate misuse by terrorists and government‐run weapons programmes or a lack of awareness by individual scientists. What is needed is an international and multidisciplinary effort to assess in full the risks involved and to identify methods to manage biological risks effectively. Communicating the results of risk assessment in a balanced and objective way is of equal importance, to ensure that public confidence in science is not undermined, and that sensible and practical regulations are developed and implemented where needed. Moreover, such an effort must be conducted at an international level with active participation—if not leadership—from the scientific community. The International Council for the Life Sciences (ICLS; Washington, DC, USA) was created specifically to help achieve this objective. The full spectrum of biological risks, ranging from emerging infectious disease to premeditated misuse, represents an urgent and global challenge for governments and intergovernmental organizations (Fig 1). Life‐science research and its commercial exploitation are essentially international in nature. They bring important benefits to medicine, public health, the food industry, agriculture and industrial processes; at the same time, potential risks to public safety and security from deliberate misuse or negligence are …