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Laboratory Biosecurity 2020: A Focus on Dual Use Research of Concern and Emerging Biotechnology_

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Malaka Hawaiian unbalanced on are we

done big penis

[Music]

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before we start our webinar here are

some reminders and guidelines for our

virtual participants first please

observe proper webinar and video

conferencing etiquette also please

change your settings to speaker view we

are also kindly requesting all

participants to turn off their video you

may post your questions regarding the

lectures through the link flashed in

your screen alternatively you may also

post your questions through the chat box

in your zoom console

lastly details on how to get your

certificate swill be flashed at the end

of the webinar we expect your adherence

to these guidelines thank you very much

you

the biorisk Association of the

Philippines in collaboration with the

Philippine Association of medical

technologists warmly welcomes all our

virtual participants to our 4th join

webinar this webinar will focus on

biosecurity the awareness of

laboratorians in biosafety and

biosecurity measures particularly during

this time of pandemic shall be

highlighted for them to be alert in

recognizing by a security threat the new

technologies and the dual use research

of concern will be discussed and

participants will learn why it is

important to know how to identify it

what is the role of risk benefit

assessment and how to develop a risk

mitigation and communication plan let us

all welcome our session moderator for

this webinar he is an active be Rapp

member a practicing veterinarian an

associate professor from the college of

veterinary medicine of central Mindanao

University ladies and gentlemen dr. Jose

Ovid & Co jr. good evening everyone once

again welcome to the fourth webinar of

the bio race Association of the

Philippines in collaboration with the

Philippine Association of medical

technologists on laboratory biosecurity

2020 a focus on emerging biotechnology

and dual use research

so concern the next session is viewed by

our official participants bye-bye Azul

and we also have our viewers through

Facebook that is currently streamed live

via the Facebook group of the Bureau to

fall to formally open the event and

welcome you all I give you the present

at the national president of the permit

and that and vice president of Europe

mr. Ronaldo who know a very good day in

a bio stage in biosecurity thanks to all

our participants join me around the

world it is my distinct honor and

privilege to represent both the diary's

Association of the Philippines and the

Philippine Association of medical

technologies in welcoming you with the

for joint webinar entitled laboratory

biosecurity 2020 a focus on emerging

biotechnology in dual use research of

concern laboratory by safe is more than

just in guarding of dangerous pathogen

and of seeds from individuals or

organizations who would use them for

harm while protection of dangerous

pathogens and have scenes is obviously

appropriate the scientific medical and

pharmaceutical communities should also

consider protecting materials with

historical vertical epidemiological

commercial or scientific value this

decision should be taken with due

consideration to the fam the scientists

serve only as temporary custodians of

valuable scientific assets whose past

and current value to science will be

understood but missed utility for the

future can only be estimated

dual use research of concern is life

sciences research that is intended for

benefit but which might easily be

supplied to do harm and SARS co2 is not

an exemption the advances of science

open doors to infinite possibilities to

make use of acquired knowledge and

techniques systems and controls should

be in place to avoid illegitimate or at

ethical research researchers laboratory

workers and by safety and laboratory

biosecurity managers should communicate

and collaborate and strive to find the

correct ethical balance for the

activities performed the possibility the

dual use research might result in his

use either intentionally or accidentally

is a long-standing concern of silence

the issue abroad and encompass the only

research in public health but also

security scientific publishing and

public communications the technology and

ethics and wider societal issues so

let's take this opportunity to learn

more and be more responsible in the use

of research as we aim towards improving

life - life sciences have an enjoyable

webinar and good day to everyone thank

you very much

thank you so much Durrani and now see it

to our first stop on a decade and by

security in the Philippines our speaker

is the physician pathologist by

profession who after finishing anatomic

and clinical pathology at Mojave Medical

Center in Ankeny TV show

was to shift career to medical research

at the research and biotechnology of st.

Luke's Medical Center in castle City in

2001 he co-founded the Philippine

biosafety and biosecurity Association

incorporated in 2008 meanwhile taking

the US Department of State banded

advanced biosafety officer training

course finishing as botched won in 2011

with his training and background in

biosafety he was appointed as biosafety

officer of st. Luke's Medical Center in

2013 in Quezon City and in global 1620

seeing the tremendous risk laboratorians

were facing with a gamut of pathogens in

the laboratory because permit to join

with him in embracing biosafety and

biosecurity which permit and

conditionally accepted it was then that

he founded a biased Association of the

Philippines incorporated also known as

Mira in 2015 with

Georgio his founding officers were

medical technologist his efforts to

advocate my safety in the country

despite the hurdles and once he needed

to climb he successfully overcame all

this and caught the eye of the

International Federation and biosafety

associations in Ottawa Canada and

awarding him the title if Bob I saved

the hero in 2016 he sought professional

certification with if BA in bio risk

management and biosecurity and obtained

these in 2017 without further ado help

me welcome dr. Miguel Martin in Moreno's

ii the bureau founding an incumbent

president breathing everyone i will

present you tonight i experience on how

beer up and I together with pomade

advocated laboratory by security and by

safety in our country let me share my

slides this presentation will focus on

my involvement in its advocacy on our

laboratories in the Philippines came to

know about my safety and biosecurity in

the last 10 to 11 years this

presentation is my own creation and does

not mirror the goals and objectives of

permit and/or Dara I personally learned

all about by safety biosecurity and then

by risk management way back in 2008 when

the laboratory I was working with

recommended me to join a training funded

by the u.s. Department of State

biosecurity engagement program it does

it like to move okay so this next two

slides this is the first one or my first

original slides way back in 2008 that I

used to present to participants to show

definitions and key terms I use in the

course to review why safety is about

prevention of unintentional risks or

protecting people from pathogens well by

security's focus on preventing in

intentional risk or protecting pathogens

from the people in addition to

protecting occupational workers

laboratory biosafety safeguards the

public and the environment from

students involving pathogens and toxins

bioscience laboratory personnel and

management have a similar responsibility

to implement by security systems but the

concepts on biosecurity are much less

understood than biosafety the word

laboratory is used in front of biosafety

and biosecurity to help guide the

definition and avoid confusion with

other meanings of the words by safety

and biosecurity however my safety and by

security principles apply to situations

outside the laboratory as well such as

field work or in the transport of

biological materials the term

biosecurity has multiple meanings

definitions and this can lead to

confusion among participants to make

sure everyone is on the same page it is

important for us to clear about which

meaning of biosecurity world we are

referring to in this webinar the

definition was list this definition was

lifted from the 2006 edition of the WH

overlap by biosecurity guidance and it

states protection control and

accountability for valuable biological

materials within laboratories in order

to prevent their unauthorized access

loss theft misused diversion or

intentional release here is the official

wh-wha publications showing the

evolution of the first edition in 1983 I

have not seen the hard copies of the

1983 and 1993 editions the very the very

first edition I got my hands on was the

Towson free edition i witnessed its

evolution and improvement since then the

2004 edition was used for a very long

time until the 4th edition came out in

2009

and laboratory biosecurity as defined in

the fourth edition refers to

institutional and personal personnel

security measures designed to prevent

the loss safe is use diversion or

intentional release of biological agents

being handled in the laboratory a little

thoughts about laboratory biosecurity as

being emphasized in the fourth edition

addressing laboratory by City theories

in many ways parallels and complements

that of by safety risk management

effective by safety practices start a

foundation of laboratory biosecurity and

biosecurity risk mitigation must be

performed as an integral part of an

institution's by safety program

management there are many challenges and

Kavya - Kavya associated with

implementing by security policies and

procedures for example many biological

agents against which protection is

needed can be found in the National

Environment an in addition biological

agents of interest may only be used in

very small quantities or may be capable

of self-replicating making them

difficult to detect or 25 in some cases

the process of quantification may itself

posts by safety and by seeking risks

furthermore while there is potential for

malicious use of this biological agent

the use is valuable for many legitimate

and benign benign diagnostic commercial

medical and research applications for

this reason it is essential to properly

assess potential biosecurity risk and

establish appropriate mitigation

measures that can reduce is without

hindering scientific processes and

progress these measures should comply

with with nano standards and regulatory

procedures can be proportionate to the

assess risks to achieve this an approach

stimulated to the biosafety risk

assessment framework should be

undertaken with specific focus on

biosecurity to identify whether an

institution mylord possesses biological

agents that may be attractive to those

who may wish to use them maliciously the

depth of this biosecurity risk

assessment should be proportionate to

the identified risk for most

laboratories biosecurity risk assessment

can often be combined with a bi safety

risk management rather than being a

standalone activity as with biosafety

the biosecurity risk process also

includes the development of strategy to

manage the biosecurity risk by selecting

and implementing biosecurity mitigation

measures a laboratory biosecurity

program is required to prepare implement

oversee and review these processes

according to the requirements of the

facility in many cases this can be

combined with by safety program

management although it may need to be a

standalone program where the bicipital

risks identified are severe and/or in

numerous I know you will recognize this

figure it was the one we started using

way back in 2006 so for a short review

physical security

into access control intrusion detection

alarm assessment response and then you

have personal security background checks

periodic investigations which has

already evolved into something higher

now pathogen security or otherwise known

as material control and accountability

focusing on detailed inventory internal

external transfer and inactivation and

disposal records of pathogens and of

course transport security and forever

three-way packaging system knowing from

where how and where will it be

transported no having a knowledgeable

eye at a person certified personnel on

board always an information security

which deals with confidentiality

integrity and availability of

information in also passwords and

backups so this was the these were the

elements of by security way back in 2006

when I started lecturing with permit and

other associations in 2014

after after attending a conference in

Europe I came home with this information

of having eight pillars of biosecurity

already which I cascaded right we a day

after I arrived I think that was in

permit Bulacan chapter so we see the

five pillars as described earlier and

additional three pillars our

organization management awareness in bio

preparedness attestation management is

simply ensuring management in

administration that they fully support

the biosafety and biosecurity program of

the institution by institutionalizing

the program and finding resources for

its program implementation and

activities awareness sorry

awareness is simply making sure that the

by safe in biosecurity program policies

with cascaded to the entire institution

from top to bottom and from left to

right by your preparedness and incident

management is preparing the laboratory

against any form of lab activity

disruption and now to respond to the

disruption of the recovering back after

the disruption is resolved which was us

which was termed resiliency in the new

whu-oh laboratory by safety manual of

2019 we have eight new pillars in the

addition to the lab base as weh-weh show

has made big changes in this edition

where from the regional five elements

inventory control let me get that out

from the initial five elements inventory

control information control personnel

control physical sensitivity control

transport control and the last is

emergency incident response plan as I

say

w-h-o made changes were from the

original five elements the one the one

element from the 2014 list which was my

preparedness they have added two new

pillars which are dual use research of

concern and emerging by technology these

two additions will be the topic of our

next two speakers thank you very much

for your attention

these are my references in the case you

would like to read on we thank you so

much dr. Martin thank you

for those who have questions you can

place it in the chat box we will have

the open forum after all the speakers

have delivered your thoughts so we will

proceed with our next talk on dual use

research and dual use research of

concern our next speaker is working as

technical adviser at health security

partners where she provides coordination

and technical support to a chess piece

health security programs in Pakistan

she has five if ba certifications and is

serving as an if but global mentor she

has also worked as a SME an ambassador

to Pakistan in 2013 to 2016 and a chess

Speas hell secure the future fellow in

2015 she has been providing by a risk

management critter national

organizations please help me welcome dr.

submarines our what sir war hello and

one good evening and I am very thankful

to be rep and permit for the invitation

to discuss tea you are see today and in

2015 I assess the level of awareness and

attitudes of researchers in Pakistan

towards still use research of concern

through a survey and published my

findings since then I have been truing

training on dual use research of concern

and updating my knowledge on it so I

know that this topic might be new to

majority of you so I welcome your

questions and I'll try to answer your

questions as many questions as possible

in this lecture or maybe or maybe you

can I will be able to answer your

questions to email after this lecture as

well so let's discuss why you need to

know about the URC and what actually

means by the term DRC so I'm sharing my

screen

I'm turning off my video so that you can

there's no internet reception okay so

what is dual use research of concern

this is very important for all of us to

know what does this mean because this is

a new concept and it came in early

twenty thousand twenty twenty thousand

but this concept is still new among many

of us and we need to understand this why

it is important and why it is relevant

to all of us in 2001 there was a group

of researchers who manufacture who

constructed like they made a polio virus

using the nucleotide sequences which are

present and databases on the Internet

and what they did they took the sequence

from the database and they synthesized a

polio virus from scratch in their lab

they synthesized that polio virus from

chemically synthesized oligonucleotides

and when they published these findings

in 2002 this sparked a huge debate in

the scientific community that why this

experiment was needed at its first place

what was the need to manufacture a polio

virus in the lab because possibly this

could be a recipe or you can say this

could be an idea for people with bad

intentions that similarly like polio

virus many other viruses can also be

synthesized in the lab and these viruses

could be very good candidates for

biological weapons so this was very

important to understand that what were

are the dual use consequences of this

research the researchers who did this

research they defended themselves by the

same that we want to test the

possibility that is is it possible to

construct a virus in lab but and they

also defended themselves by saying that

if this virus polio virus is present all

around the world then why why they will

feel the need to synthesize it in lab so

this this doesn't

make sense so but this sparked a huge

debate in the scientific community later

on in 2005 there was a research in which

they constructed the influenza virus

Spanish flu you many of you might know

that Spanish flu came in 1918 and this

pandemic stayed in the world from 1917

to 1920 and 50 million people died in

this pandemic which is 3 percent of the

world's population at that time so they

reconstructed that virus in their lab

and this reconstruction again got many

questions on it that why it was

important to construct this deadly virus

in lab so the researchers had said that

if we will not prepare if will not study

this virus we will not be able to make

countermeasures will not be able to make

vaccines will not prepare ourselves for

future similar pandemics that's why it

is important to construct this virus in

lab and to study it to explore the

pandemic potential of this virus so you

see that biological research there are

both a peaceful can also be used for

peaceful purposes and there are some

harmful this can also be used for

harmful uses as well so what comes in to

harmful use it can be used by bio

terrorists or other people who have bad

intentions they can be used as bio

weapons and what are the peaceful

purposes they can be used in

pharmaceuticals vaccines and diagnostics

now this is the dual use component of

biological research early on it was

there was a concept that dual use is

only dual use research is a limited

group of research projects now with the

passage of time people have and the

scientific community has started

thinking that dual use research is not

only a limited role number of research

products are not only dual use research

possibly all biological research all

biological research can at least

theoretically be dual use because for

example if you are doing the research

who are studying just the pathogenicity

of the virus or you are just studying

whether

it is resistant to certain antibiotics

or not these simple pieces of

information when they combine that could

generate an information which can be

used with by people with bad intentions

so now we can say that every research is

possibly dual-use and this is why it is

important for all of us to know about

how we should be looking at our research

projects how should we have a security

mindset to look at our risk projects and

ourself decide what are the benefits of

this research and how my research can be

misused by someone else okay so in this

lecture we'll see how to identify which

research is dual use research of concern

and once we identify that this

particular research project is D u RC

which is B you would use research of

concern what will we do about it well

how will we assess and how we will

manage the risks which are associated

with it in so let's start with the

controversy which again came up in 2011

that too many scripts were submitted to

nature and science and these too many

scripts in these too many scripts there

was successful synthesis of a more

deadly variant of highly pathogenic

influenza and what was the most worrying

thing about it was that this influenza

had 60 percent mortality rate so you can

see that Spanish flu has only 2.5

percent mortality rate but this avian

influenza had 60 percent mortality rate

and this was also able to transmit

between mammals to air route airborne

route and this sparked a huge debate and

nature in size recognized the dual use

potential of this research and they said

why it is important to do this research

why you feel the need to make a more

deadly variant of highly pathogenic

avian influenza so the scientists said

that we want to see what is possible

what is possible rather than just sit

and wait how niche natural mutations or

natural mutations which are occurring

they can possibly generate a more

avian influenza strain which can spark a

global catastrophic

so this is how the scientists justified

this so you can see that since both how

early 2000 2001 there have been a lot of

research projects which were which came

up which has dual use potential but how

we will distinguish between dual use

research and dual use research of

concern so dual use research is simply a

research project any research project

which have which is done by a researcher

for good purposes for beneficial

purposes but there can be some risks

associated with it not by safety risk

there are risk that it can be used by

someone else by someone else not by the

researcher who is doing this research by

someone else using the information using

the project of that research using the

technology which is being generated as a

result of that research he can misuse

this information this prod product and

this technology so they're both uses

there are peaceful uses and there are

harmful uses of of one research but when

we will call this research as dual use

research of concern there are two main

points on it so how wh showed the

financed it so it's it's important that

you understand the basic concept that

what is dual use research the biological

research which can have both peaceful

purposes and which can be used for bad

purposes as well but how we will define

dual use research of concern this is

research biblia Cho defines is that is

intended for benefit like the researcher

is doing it for benefit but it can be

easily miss applied to do harm okay so

let's see how NSABB defines this

research there are two important points

one is the scope and second one is how

immediately is can be Mis applied so

whenever we designate a research as dual

use research of concern so that word

concern is important because it means

that it has a huge scope of broad

potential consequences or

threat to public health and safety group

to crops to plants to animals to

material to environment so it means what

is the score it should be has

significant threat to public health and

safety and it should be immediately

misapplied you should be able to move

immediately miss supplied okay so when

we see at the definition of the you are

see any research project which can be

easily miss applied immediately miss

applied in as a broad significant threat

to public health means its scope of

destruction is very high then we will

call if SD you are see okay so this is

the difference between D u R and D you

are see when when the word concerns

attach with it it means it has a huge

scope of catastrophic destruction and it

can be immediately miss applied you do

not need a lot of information a lot of

support in terms of like all the

information is readily available in this

research project that it can be upon me

supplied to to do harm for example if we

take the first example in our first

example we saw that they make a highly

pathogenic avian influenza virus strain

if that strain is released into the

environment it can immediately call

cause major public health it can

threaten Public Health and Safety can

cause a lot of deaths immediately okay

and it's scored because deaths is very

high that's why we can designate that

research as dual use research of concern

so when the experiments there were

controversial experiments when they

start coming up in 2001 and then two and

then three national research council in

us they made a committee which was

chaired by Fink okay

so they made a committee in 2004 and

they all the scientists came together

they sit together and this this thought

that we should do something about it

before this these research projects are

being published openly and every anyone

can access this information and can use

it for bad purposes so these were a few

there

made like they make a sync report and

the name of this Fink report is

biotechnology in an age of terrorism

confronting the dual use dilemma so they

made this report which is called as Fink

report and what were the recommendations

of this roofing report they said that we

should educate the scientific

community's national and international

organizations they should educate

researchers about dual use research of

concern because ultimately the

researcher is the one who knows his

research the best the researcher is the

one who decides to do this particular

project and it is very important to

educate that scientists if that

scientists is able to identify the URC

he will be able to report he'll be able

to take proper mitigation for my years

from the very start

it's very important to educate

scientific community it's very important

to educate the other stakeholders okay

then the second point is review of plans

for experiments so what does this mean

that for example IR EVG institutional

review entity or it can be make part of

institutional biosafety committee

whenever the research project comes to

IBC for approval they should have D you

are C experts on board who can evaluate

that research project whether it has any

dual use potential or not and if there

any any D you are see potential comes up

they should address it they should ask

researchers to take proper mitigation

measures or modify in their research

then publications take stage review

tells us that the journals which which

review the articles and which publish

the articles they should have a DRC they

should review it from the DRC

perspective okay so if for example in

our earlier example we saw that in

nature and science bathe themselves

reported they came up that this research

has to lose potential and it should be

taken care of okay so this is very

important that the journals should have

proper people who have the expertise in

to you RC and they should evaluate

research projects on the URC grounds

then they feel the need of create

our National Science Advisory Board for

biosecurity who can provide advice or do

one use research both government and for

the researchers in addition to this

there should be improved communication

between law enforcement and life science

organizations because ultimately if you

are going to report something you'll

have to both of these stakeholders you

understand each other so otherwise it

will not be able to properly highlight

these problems and report these problems

six point was that so for example a

researcher made a very highly package

anak infinite avian influenza virus in

their lab and but not intentionally but

unintentionally this virus was if it is

released into the environment it can

cause similar damage of broad potential

consequences that is why it is also

important to have proper physical

containment and it should they should

sort out the biosecurity and personal

issues and then there should be

international oversight because these

research because the publication goes

everywhere anyone from around the world

can access this publication it means

they will they can use this information

if there is no coordination in among

international internationally then it

will not work there should be consensus

there should be international

internationally - to be consensus

between countries on how to regulate and

how to do proper oversight of this kind

of research okay so now we will discuss

what are the seven categories of

experiments so NSABB which i told you

that they created a National Science

Advisory Board for biosecurity they said

that what we can do we can identify

could some categories of experiments

which has high potential that take fall

under bu RC they have high potential

that they can fall and do you RC so they

identified seven categories these seven

categories for example if you are

enhancing the harmful consequences of a

biological agent for example you are

making it more virulent you are making

it more like able to infect people with

more virulent and

it has more consequences of reinfection

or disrupting immunity for example you

can meet you make a virus which is

against which the vaccination which is

already in place will not work against

this virus ok confer a resistant for

example if you have for example

doxycycline for Vibrio the making

strains which are resistant to

antibiotics or therapeutic interventions

which are already in place or you are

increasing their stability in the

environment you are increasing this

transmissibility for any reason for

example there was experiment on cluster

Clostridium botulinum and the purpose of

that experiment was to make more

resistant spores of Clostridium

botulinum and the reason behind that was

that these spores will not be able to

study these spores in detail if you will

not make it more stable so that's why

they made their spores more stable but

that was not for any bad intentions that

for that were that experiment was for

good but but ultimately you are giving a

recipe on how to make cost freedom what

L&M spores more stable so this is that

is why it comes under the you are see

because you are increasing the stability

increasing the transmissibility oh you

want to alter the host range like for

earlier on it was not able to infect

Birds now it is able to infect Birds for

everyone it was not able to infect

mammals now it is able to infect mammals

or you increase the susceptibility of

the host population like for example you

enter a gene into a virus that whenever

they enter into the body the immune

system will not work as a result of this

gene okay or you are generating a normal

pack version or weakens constituting an

extent biological agents these

categories all seven categories of

experiments they come under they can

come under the you are see they don't

come under you a cynic can come under

the you are so you will have to do

assessment and will see whether they can

come in the you are see or not okay so

these are experiments of concerns

whenever these experiment at your

research falls under these categories

the your research will need

identification whether this

for this is purC or north and then it

will require more concern more vigilance

and more oversight and then they are a

select agent these select agents are

because they are very weak us the name

us name of these agents is select agents

they are also called as security

sensitive biological agents they are

also called tires tire 1 type 2 agents

or specially dangerous pathogens there

are different names for these sorts of a

sort of agents in different countries

why these agents are important because

they have higher potential to be misused

in as a biological weapon because they

have like all the properties which a

biological weapon should have ok so now

after knowing the 7 categories of

experiments and after knowing the Select

agents now we will see how will we

identify that our research is do you RC

or not it doesn't mean that your we

experiment falls under 7 categories that

it is diverse it doesn't mean that it is

do you are see if your experiment falls

under 7 categories if you are working on

a select agent it doesn't mean that your

experiment is do you RC to be called as

bu RC or to be designated as d you are

see did that particular research project

should fit into the definition of the

you are see if it doesn't fit into the

definition of B you are see whether it

is one of the seven categories of

experiments whether it is select agent

it will not be called Rd you are C okay

so for to coop to be called as d you are

C it should fit into the definition of

you do you are C okay and there is there

is an other case as well sometimes you

are doing research which doesn't fall

under these seven categories you are not

working on select agents but still that

research has the potential to be called

as the you are see for example in early

2001 - there was experiments in which

they were making a device which

transmitted aerosols stood too deep into

the lungs so they've made it for

estimate agents to deliver drug deep

into the lungs but they came up at the

same device can be used

for the spread of pathogen as well so it

doesn't come under seven categories it

doesn't involve a select agent but it

fits into the definition of do you RC

that's why it could be called as the you

RC okay so once you designate that your

research is to RC and I only have

mentioned that to be called as the you

RC you should have the that particular

research project should have the scope

of broad potential consequences or

significant threat to public health and

safety and the second thing was it

should be immediately miss appliable

okay so it should should should be

immediacy so what are the two main

things

it is the scope and immediacy scope and

immediacy so to be called as this if it

has the scope and it can be immediately

we supply it it will fit into the

definition of purC okay now what you

will do about the you are see if you

have identified that your research

project is to you who are see it doesn't

mean that research should be prohibited

or should not be published okay

what you do is that if you because we

cannot hinder scientific progress we

cannot sign scientific progress just

because of a small chance that

bioterrorism or terrorists can use this

information to make something very

dangerous for Public Health and Safety

whatever doe will apply proper

mitigation meyers why we want to

identify the Urca at the first place

that will be able to apply mitigation

Myers we will be able to see how it

should be communicated and if there is

no benefits associated with this

research what we will do we will

discontinue you know the research but

this will be the last option

do you RC designation doesn't mean that

you stop research do you just what you

do you do risk and benefit assessment so

this is the question that should

scientist stop the research one it once

it is designated as to you RC no

scientist should not stop the research

they should evaluate it they should see

what

are the risks associated with this

research they should see what are the

benefits which are associated with this

PCH for example what are the mix for

example biosecurity risks they are

biosafety risks there are risks which

are associated with communication it can

cause public public threat like it can

cause a panic panic in the public it can

shatter public confidence so these are

all associated risks it can be used for

bioterrorism these are the risks which

are associated with DQ RC but what are

the benefits the same research can be

used to make for example as I earlier

mentioned that to make us for more

stable so if you make us for more stable

you able to study it ok so what are the

benefits it will progress science it

will what are the benefits it might be

used the information which is which will

be generated as a result of this

research it will be used for therapeutic

purposes for vaccination for other

beneficial purposes ok so then comes the

question that after a careful

risk-benefit assessment that once a

research is designated as d you are see

you assess the risks you assess the

benefits then you weigh them if the

benefits are more than the risk what you

do you will focus on the risks apply

proper mitigation measures and you will

try to bring this risk under acceptable

range okay and you will continue your

research you will do continuous

monitoring of your research you will

plan out accordingly

you will apply apply proper mitigation

measures and you will see what how will

I communicate this research what should

be my communication plan but sometimes

it happens for example in certain

research projects the risks are more

than the benefits the benefits are very

few but the risks are very high the work

what will you do you will either modify

it a bit if you are not able to control

the risks with proper mitigation

measures you will try to control or

modify your research and if it is not

possible to modify your wrist your risk

and still the risks are very high

you may consider the continuing it okay

this is the last option that UD

continued but initially you think what

mitigation mayor's can be applied what

control my years you can need to be in

place how you will continuously monitor

it and how will you plan communication

okay now you have risk and benefit you

have identified the you are C you have

done risk and benefit assessment and

then you see that the benefits outweigh

the risk benefits are more and the risks

are less then you will see that how you

can move forward for example the

benefits are prediction of pandemics

like we see that they made a more

virulent strain of avian influenza so

this was important to have for to

prepare for the worst-case scenarios or

to see what is the pandemic potential of

this virus or you want to understand

host-pathogen interactions or you can

want to make effective counter my years

oh this is very important that there is

this is this is there is one school of

thought the things that when the

research is funded with public money

public has the right to know about it so

the renter was the research about the

highly avian avian pathogenic avian

influenza virus was under review in

nature and science journals they said

that we will publish it

after omitting critical information like

critical information which can be

misused like material and methods but

later on there was a huge opposition

against this the scientific one

one group of scientists do you think

that how you can like redact some

information who gave you the right to

like like hinder a published publishing

full manuscript so later on they took

their decision back and they allowed

full publication because the scientists

think that if you'll not publish

complete results the other scientific

groups cannot challenge that research

they cannot do it they cannot see

whether it was actually the case or not

okay and the risks are for example

they can be accidental exposure or

release through rigorous biosafety and

biosecurity project it procedures it can

provide a recipe for bioterrorist it can

provide unnecessary experiments that do

not have a health or societal benefit it

can create a normal pathogen so when we

see it in the context of cobalt 19

during this pandemic we can foresee

there this pathogen which if it is which

it is if it is stored without proper

biosecurity in my earth these pathogens

can be acquired by research groups and

these these research groups can do

certain types of research on this

packaging but if they don't know what

can be the implications of their

research whether there it is possible to

use this information some other groups

can use your information for bad

purposes so in Co it in this in the

context of Corbett 19 you need to

understand that whenever you are

starting your research you should

analyze the risks and benefits

associated with it and if your benefits

are more than the risks then you should

properly address these risks in your

publication and you should publish it

accordingly okay so it's very important

that whenever you are going to do any

research analyze it from this

perspective that why it is important so

it is very important to have a security

mindset okay so how you will communicate

it so communication is very important it

in this it is one of the mitigation

measures so what are you going to

publish it fully for example you are

going to include material and methods or

you want to omit material and methods

what should be the timing you want to

publish it immediately or you want to

publish it later on for example you are

working on a pathogen whose vaccine is

not available until yet publishing it

like publishing this particular package

and a more virulent strain of this

pathogen can be more disastrous at this

point but later on when it's vaccine is

already available then the risk

associated with research automatically

goes down so timing is also very

important and extent of distribution is

that up to how how like which people

want to access your research you want to

do it open open access completely any

any person around the world can see the

content all you want to to access your

research by certain groups who are

working doing the relevant research only

and who applied through proper channel

to get access so this is responsible

communication okay so this is basically

do you RC in in the end I will like to

mention a very key important points that

the seven categories of experiments if

your research falls under seven

categories of experiments okay

it cannot be do you RC there is a

possibility that it is the you RC or not

but if your research falls under these

seven categories of experiment it

requires more oversight it requires more

vigilance it requires more concern okay

but there are research projects so it

doesn't fall under these seven

categories of experiment they are but

they still are D you are see right now

why it is naked because now it is

considered that almost all research

projects should be should be analyzed

from the from the very first stage when

students are designing their projects

this test we should build a security

mindset in these students okay the first

like researchers think that whatever

they are doing they are doing it for

good but they don't think that what can

be the misapplications of my research

this security bringing a security

mindset among this these researchers it

was very important so they are able to

analyze their research from that point

and they continuously versus revisit

their research because they are the most

responsible in this in this term because

they are the one who knows they research

the best ok so this is very important

that he would build a security mindset

in our researchers from the very early

carrier in their in in research ok so

thank you very much and well maybe we'll

address questions in time

thank you very much dr. Sam ring okay

thank you very much dr. Sami that was a

very comprehensive discussion on dual

use research of concern so you can still

post your questions for dr. serene and

dr. Marten in the chat box or in the

link that was provided earlier in the

session so we will now go straight to

our last top

Oh which will be on biosecurity 2020

ensuring biosecurity Freaker serves as a

director of scientific programs as

health security partners or HSV which is

a nonprofit organization based in

Washington DC and indicated the building

local capacity for health security

globally his training is in molecular

biology and biochemistry and he holds a

PhD from John Hopkins University after

conducting best research for a few years

our speaker dr. Prasad moved to the

field of global health security working

through a number of nonprofit

organization to strengthen laboratory

and health security capacity he has been

supporting partnership to prevent the

attack and respond to emerging BIOS

biological threats in the Philippines

and across the Seon region dr. Prasad

and H SP has been a partner of Europe

since the very big

evening and were working on multiple

efforts and strengthened by security

systems in the Philippines with that we

welcome dr. Prasad kuta bali thank you

for that wonderful introduction and I

would I would like to say thank you also

to dr. Martin and the be Rapp committee

for inviting me to share my thoughts on

emerging technologies and biosecurity

let me share my screen and then we can

get started

you

okay I think both the talks given by dr.

Martin and by submarine were perfect

introductions to the topic and this is

just going to be a continuation

I think dr. Martin covered the basic

elements of biosecurity really well and

then submarine focused on dual use

research of concern and this is going to

continue on research but research using

new technologies that are coming out and

how they affect our perception of

biosecurity and what methodologies we

have to reduce the risk from these

technologies so I will start by telling

you what these emerging technologies are

and how they work and I should tell you

that I am NOT an expert in these

emerging technologies my focus area is

on the biosecurity threats from these

emerging technologies so are I - I'm

learning as I go

every every week there are new

publications there are new discoveries

in this field and then you you know

people like me who bleed it often think

wow we have not thought about that that

that poses a significant risk what do we

do about it

but then these emerging technologies are

superbly exciting because they have the

potential to grow the Bioeconomy they

can bring jobs they can provide

solutions to infectious disease problems

and as well as you know chronic disease

problems that we face so so there's a

lot of potential for growth and I'll

talk about that and then I'll talk about

the threats from these technologies and

then mechanisms for addressing the

threats and ensuring biosecurity

so there are there are many emerging

technologies today I will focus on

synthetic biology and I think some rain

started us off on that subject and then

I will talk about gene editing systems I

think a lot of you must have heard about

CRISPR casts and then gene drives and

there are and by the way these are not

the only emerging technologies there's

also artificial intelligence there is

UAVs lots of other technologies that are

coming up very rapidly that could pose

biosecurity risk

so basically synthetic biology brings

engineering and biology together to make

new tanks for new use and new

applications and people have often

called this the design and construction

of new parts devices and systems or the

redesign of existing biological systems

and this is a quick slide that I have to

acknowledge dr. G loon from National

University of Singapore who introduced

this topic to me and this was a this was

a great slide from him which compares

what engineering does when they build a

machine they start with the raw

materials and then they just design you

know resistors capacitors logic gates

circuits and then you have the machine

with with with an application and

similar there are similarly people in

synthetic biology are looking to do that

with the components of a cell we have

enough information now about nucleotides

basically we have sequence information

we have genome sequences for a large

number of genomes and we know how how

genes produce the produce proteins and

then proteins direct biochemical

reactions and then there are networks

and pathways that ultimately lead to

some kind of an output from the cell so

how do we how do we take these various

components and build something that will

be useful to us that's the basic goal of

synthetic biology and there are many

applications to synthetic biology

Submarine in her talk told you about how

they synthesized the poliovirus

starting from pieces of DNA in the lab

and then they gave also did that for the

1918 flu those are example of examples

of synthetic genomics where you start

we'll start from scratch and then you

build a DNA molecule and then you do

what what is called genome engineering

and and and others have also worked on

developing a basic cell a bacterial cell

for example that can be used for

synthetic biology there are of course

you know there are many applications

including cell factories where you use

the cell to produce drugs or you produce

chemicals that are of health useful use

commercial use you can also develop them

for genetic circuits so that you know

you can control what are the outputs of

the cell you can use it as biosensors

for detection work and I will talk to

you a little bit about that soon there

are many interesting applications

including covert 19 detection you can

use them as therapeutic cells

essentially you know gene delivery etc

where you are able to change the course

of a disease through engineering and of

course bio remediation which is of value

to in the environment so these are some

of the these are some of the

applications and this is why this is

such a huge big deal many countries

especially in the ASEAN region have

invested very heavily in synthetic

biology there are a lot of startup

companies that are working on these

kinds of solutions and there are there's

of course academic research that is

supporting these companies and and it's

estimated that the market will be

something like the more than 38 billion

this year

you

so we talked about

reconstituting viruses let me give you

one more example this is this happened a

few years ago a Canadian researchers

developed they basically built the horse

pox virus from scratch and they used

they did this they were at a university

but they did this in using private

funding so in many countries if you use

private funding then you don't have to

do the kind of oversight that sumreen

was talking about in under dual use

research of concern so really I mean the

first time that people heard about this

research was when it was ready for

publication it had already been done and

this was a great concern because you

know Horse Parks is closely related to

smallpox and by by doing this research

and pub wandering to publish it the the

researchers were basically providing a

blueprint for people for labs around the

world to be able to synthesize the

smallpox virus and I think all of us

know why that that is a high-risk

proposition so there there were many

concerns here including what's happening

with private funding that you know does

that is not reviewed by government

agencies for example if this was an NIH

National Institute of Health in the US

funded project then there would have

been oversight mechanisms there would

have been review etc but none of that

was required because this was private

funding and then the researchers

themselves they said well we want to do

this because we don't have access to

small parts it goes as you know smallpox

is only stored at the CDC in the US and

at the vector lab in Russia those are

the only two labs that are allowed to

have smallpox and so they said we don't

have access to that and therefore we

thought let's start here and come up

with new vaccines for smallpox that

would be helpful in case there is

misuse of smallpox unfortunately that

was not a good enough justification if

you again

some rain talked about risk benefit

analysis and really it if you go in and

look at that paper and you read the

commentary on it it's very difficult to

justify what was done but you know

currently there is nothing in place that

prevents something like this from being

these kinds of experiments from being

conducted um I get a lot of interesting

when I talk about this subject and I've

talked about it in many countries and I

get a lot of interesting reactions and

most of the reactions come from senior

researchers and senior members in

government who say who either say oh you

know this kind of research is not

happening in our country or they say we

don't think this research is valuable

for our country and so we will not allow

but the what we see is that there is

actually this synthetic biology is very

popular among the next generation of

scientists and there are many things

that are happening like the iGEM

competition which I have highlighted in

this slide the International genetically

engineered machine competition which

happens once a year and it is open to

undergraduates and graduate students

from around the world who can submit

ideas and then carry out the research

and then they go to the iGEM and present

their research and they can be and they

can win awards and and recognition and

so a lot of groups University groups are

very interested in this and this year

it's going to be at the end of October

and I assume you know of course it's

going to be a virtual one this one but

but these competitions are happening and

if you go and look at the iGEM website

you will see that there is participation

from all around the world so even though

you may not be involved in this research

in this kind of research or you don't

know anyone who is your students might

come up to you and say we want to

participate in item and we have an idea

for it and then you have to deal with us

in addition to item

there's also what is called DIY bio or

do-it-yourself biology and you can go to

these websites and check it out these

are groups of people citizen scientists

what we call and these are groups of

people who get together and they you

know do experiments in their garage or

in their they have a small set up and

and they do and they do biotechnology

related experiments and there's a very

popular one called the open insulin

project all over the US and abroad which

is focusing on how do we make insulin so

that you know we don't have to pay the

prices that are charged by their large

biotech companies I went and looked this

morning and there was a very interesting

group called Manila biopunk and they are

a do a DIY group in Manila to their

credit they are very security conscious

and safety conscious and they are very

open on their website and they say that

they do not work with pathogens but it's

interesting to see that you know as I as

I do talks in different parts of the

world and then I I look at the website

regularly to see what new groups there

are there are groups all over the all

over the world and this is actually

happening we may or may not know about

it and and the problem with something

like DIY biology is that it's very

difficult to regulate this and it's very

difficult even to educate these groups

etc because you have to provide first

you have to find them and then you have

to get to know them and get their

confidence only then can you do training

awareness building and some you know a X

some amount of regulatory control

gene-editing this is a very popular

topic and this everyone

I would assume has heard about CRISPR

castes and this is basically a system

that exists naturally in bacteria and it

helps the bacteria fight off infection

by bacteria phages and i have simplified

that here and basically it consists of a

protein that is called cass 9 and then

which you can see here in beige and then

there is a guide RNA or grna and using

these two components you can find any

location in the genome basically you can

recognize you can read DNA sequence and

you can find as the sequence that you

are looking for in the genome inside the

cell once you find it you can cut at a

particular location and then because the

cell will try to repair the cut and we

know how a repair works we can then add

a desired sequence that we want in place

of the cut and that is that you know in

a very simplified way is how gene

editing works so you have the ability to

find any sequence that you want in the

DNA you have the ability to cut that

sequence at a particular location and

then you are able to join it and insert

a sequence that you would like in in

that place so you can imagine you can if

there are mutations that are causing

disease you can repair it and so this is

why CRISPR technology is so exciting and

I will talk about applications in a

minute I have I have over here a link to

a TED talk by the person who discovered

Chris forecast Jennifer Doudna and it's

a great TED talk and I know that you

know for a lot of people

reading publications is not always top

of your list but listening to a TED talk

is is always interesting and engaging so

go check it out it's a great way to

learn how CRISPR works and what are some

of the concerns with CRISPR CRISPR kits

are available for sale from various

companies so you can buy that there are

also online resources for designing your

crisper so basically you have to design

that IDE RNA in such a way that it will

recognize the sequence in the genome

that you are looking for and then there

is also a DIY or Do It Yourself

bacterial gene engineering Chris pocket

that is available for people for people

who are enthusiastic about trying this

out and basically it goes in and makes a

mutation in the in the bacteria in

e.coli non-pathogenic that allows the

bacteria to grow on a different media

and so that way you have basically

changed the genome of the bacteria and

therefore you are getting growth on a

new media

[Music]

so here's one application there are many

diseases and I think people have made an

inventory of about a hundred diseases

that are the result of genetic mutations

and one is blindness and so again there

is now it's been FDA approved to do a

clinical trial for a for a gene delivery

a gene editing system that goes in and

changes the changes of mutation and

corrects it so that people are able to

see again

now that's a you know that's a great

example of the kind of applications that

gene editing provides kind of solutions

there's also a Co bit nineteen testing

diagnostic that has got the approval

from FDA and basically because you can

read the sequence you should be able to

recognize any virus or any bacteria or

other pathogens and so there are a lot

of diagnostic uses for Co for CRISPR

this gene editing technology is people

in plant in the field of Agriculture are

really really excited about it because

you have all kinds of applications where

you can make a disease resistant drought

resistant you know increased yield etc

of of basic foods grains and so from

that even commercial crops and from that

you know that will ensure food security

and that will ensure that we have the

best the best the best plants and see

it's available to to propagate and and

this has always been done by the plant

community they have always been looking

for better qualities of thryce a better

quality of maize etc but now they have a

tool that saves them time effort and

money livestock

Genet gene-editing is very big and it's

easier to do experiments and livestock

so now there are pigs that are resistant

to major diseases PEDV and PRRS and

these are again in the experimental

stages at this point but these pigs a

bit have been created and they are

resistant to the D to the disease

because the receptor which is used by

the virus has been modified in these

pigs in chicken this is not at the

animal stage yet this is in the lab

stage where they have modified one of

the proteins so that the so that the

cell can be resistant to influenza so

you can imagine in the livestock sector

this is huge if these kinds of animals

are allowed and they are found to be

safe this could change you know the

livestock sector forever but there are

concerns with these kinds of things when

you put pressure on the pathogen

remember the seven things that summary

in pointed out the seven areas of

concern for research one of those was

change of host range what if what if as

the result of this there are mutations

in the virus that alter the hostile host

range or that alter transmissibility

pathogenicity so those are the kinds of

concerns and questions that will have to

be asked before these kinds of things

are actually allowed in in mass

production for livestock and of course

we had the worst case scenario happen

when a Chinese scientist edited human

embryos and mutated the ccr5 gene which

helps to make people resistant to HIV

infection and and since then this of

course is a huge moral dilemma because

you can imagine all kinds of designer

babies you can also imagine all kinds of

design or applications for military

purposes etc that can be done if we go

down this

and therefore scientists all over the

world have called for a moratorium on

germline editing in humans then based on

gene editing there is something called a

gene drive now if you look at the left

side of this figure you will see that if

you use CRISPR and you change one copy

of the gene or one chrome one allele as

its labeled here then normally over

generations it takes the pattern of

normal inheritance and all of you have

studied this at some point or the other

in biology and genetics this is this is

normal inheritance where there's that's

where there's a limited probability of

being passed on to the next generation

but then if you do a trick using CRISPR

castes what is called a gene drive where

you are able to modify both copies then

what happens is that over time all of

your progeny will have the mutation will

have the change that you have created so

this gene drives are a way to make

population wide changes and I could go

into this and explain in detail but we

don't have the time here so I leave you

with a very interesting TED talk from

Jennifer Khan that that describes how

gene drives work and this is very

exciting for those people who are

working on vector borne diseases because

in the lab they have been able to create

a gene Drive that basically leads to a

population collapse of mosquitoes where

the female offspring cannot bite and

therefore they cannot produce eggs and

therefore over a few generations the

mosquito population dies out so this you

know this is still in the experimental

lab stage and but people are very

excited about this so a couple of years

ago when there was a

all for a moratorium on gene drives

several countries voted against it

because they are very much interested in

pursuing these technologies to control

vector borne diseases which caused huge

devastation particularly in sub-saharan

Africa

so this is the most important and

interesting piece from my perspective on

how do we control these technologies and

how do we make mitigate the risks so

that we can continue to work on these

technologies and all the amazing

discovery that we are seeing so we don't

want to stop science we don't want to

stop the economy but at the same time we

get it we can be safe and secure so at

the national level at all levels you

need policy there is currently no policy

on this that is satisfactory anywhere in

the world but it's an opportunity for

people to come together and talk about

this and come up with effective policy

at the national level there should also

be a body that will review approve and

provide oversight of this kind of work

now in many countries especially in

ASEAN in Singapore and in Malaysia they

have taken as you know in every country

there is a body the national biosafety

committee etc that looks at GMOs and

reviews all GMO products so that

committee has taken over the research

oversight review and oversight functions

in some countries the problem is that

committee has no experience in biosafety

or biosecurity they have always worked

on GMOs and so now they are trying to

bring in biosafety and biosecurity

experts in order to be able to review

this kind of work because ultimately all

gene-editing falls under genetic

modification of one kind or the other

and there needs to be awareness raising

at the national level institutionally

policies are required some rain

mentioned this and I will reiterate

there needs to be robust institutional

bio risk committee everyone is used to

institutional biosafety committee and

people are quite good at doing biosafety

risk assessments and biosafety met

in biosafety measures in many countries

now because biosafety has been around

for a long time but biosecurity is a

different thing and there aren't there

isn't a lot of expertise and people are

frankly not very comfortable with doing

biosecurity risk assessments or doing

biosecurity mitigation all institutions

of course need a robust biosecurity and

DRM system by risk management system

training education and a culture of

responsibility all of these things we

have previously talked about at the

individual level some countries have a

code of conduct that they have developed

for scientists so that they will comply

with the policy they will comply with

the best practices and also individuals

scientists need to be very comfortable

with risk assessment and mitigation this

is a difficult thing to learn and this

is a difficult thing to do and you know

for those of you who have attended

biosafety and biosecurity talks risk

assessment is usually the toughest

subject area and so but people need to

get better at doing risk assessment and

mitigation and and the other thing I

will say is that so far all of our

biosafety and biosecurity programs are

all focused on life scientists on

biologists or health scientists we need

to bring the engineering community into

this because you will notice that as

more and more people do synthetic

biology and gene editing systems etc for

example if you remember I told you about

the international competition called I

gem if you look at the teams of aij M it

consists of maybe 25% to 50% of the team

is is from the life sciences of biology

or biotechnology the other 50% is from

pure engineering mechanical engineers

you know

materials engineers etc who have no

background whatsoever in safety SiC

biosafety biosecurity or risk assessment

and mitigation measures and they don't

even know that these things exist so we

really need to take everything that we

have been teaching and everything that

we have been learning and expand this

and so for you know organizations like

bee wrap this means outreach to

communities that are beyond what the

current outreach is how do you engage

engineers how do you get them interested

in these kind of things these are all

challenges that all of us face and we

have to think about it and we have to

come up with solutions and again you

know both funding agencies and journals

funding agencies are responsible for

funding the research so they need to

make sure there's sufficient review and

oversight journals of course will

publish the results which can be misused

and therefore they also need peer review

policy peer review and oversight so some

read mention the seven areas of

identifying threats in research I think

the first for the way I have grouped it

over here the first four are related to

pathogens or toxins and so if you're

doing work with pathogens or toxins then

you have to be careful about those

categories and you have some idea

already that you know oh my research

could be do use dual use research of

concern but now we come to these three

areas that I have highlighted in bold

here which is altered the host range of

tropism of an agent or toxin this can be

done unknowingly and this can be done

with this can be an unintended

consequence for example I showed you the

CRISPR chicken or the CRISPR pigs that

are being developed for livestock

industry that could be an example of how

we are going to change the hosts range

of the of the agent this next thing is

interfere with the generation of

immunity to an agent or toxin and this

is very important because we are going

to come up with new and new with newer

solutions to tackle simple thing simple

chronic conditions in the body in the

process we might alter the immune status

of the person and therefore that person

might be far more susceptible to the

dangerous pathogens these are the kinds

of things that we have we have to think

two steps ahead and we have to start

thinking about what will be the what

will be the consequences of our research

and our applications of these

technologies down the road and the city

the number seven is of course connected

to number six the susceptibility of the

host to an agent I will also focus that

I will also reiterate and focus on the

pillars that Martin outlined at the very

beginning of the talk the pillars are

still really important you need to have

you need to think about outsider threats

you need to think about insider threats

you need to have things like inventory

control information control personnel

control physical security transport

security and emergency response plants

all of those things need to be in place

those are all the same best practices if

you are working with synthetic biology

and emerging technologies you need to

have all of those systems in place in

your lab in order to be able to make

sure that you are ensuring biosecurity

with that I thank you for your attention

and I think now we'll take questions

till I pass this on to the beer wrap

committee

okay thank you so much dr. Prasad okay

thank you to all our three speakers so

now we will be reading some questions

that are raised by our participants in

the chat box okay let me try for some

rain sorry sorry okay more or less there

were some common questions for some ring

hello submarine can you dr. Simon can

you hear me yes I can hear you yeah okay

I think most of the questions are

related to the current and Debbie so we

have here some questions from some

Marita Lapita from mr. Tandon Matthew

and marina Bautista so more or less the

questions evolve on with the current

pandemic of copied 19 do you think the

Kovach name team pandemic is a product

of and love a product of a laboratory or

laboratory groans most of the questions

the question either it can it be a

biological weapon or is it in an

intentionally released so they're just

asking for your opinion on this matter

okay

so we cannot say this because there have

been a lot of theories rolling around

the social media and internet that this

could be one of the biological weapons I

will try to clear one thing that

biological weapon is not only the a used

for different purposes for example they

are not only to make like to the time'

connecticut they don't only want

people to die they can be for other

purposes they can be for agriculture

against agriculture against Lance so

these are different types of

bioterrorism event especially if we

specifically talk about covering

nineteen so before there is a prove or

evidence that this could be one of the

biological weapons of lepton virus we

cannot say for sure that whether it is a

biological weapon or not I would like to

press on rice Prasad to comment on it

this as well

thank you something I think as you

mentioned there has been a lot of

speculation in the media and this has

been politicized at various levels but I

will draw your attention to a nature

paper I want to say it was a couple of

months ago now which looked at the

sequences very carefully and looked at

the evolution of the virus and there

they and the authors concluded that in

all probability this is a naturally

occurring virus that its mother nature

that produced this virus and that's how

this virus came into the world and and

then of course you know it started in

animals and then it infected human

beings and then it spread there was

human to human transmission and now it's

all over the world there is no there is

no evidence to suggest that in any way

that this was engineered because if you

if you look at the other corona viruses

and if you look at their sequences and

then you look at this sequence etc there

are ways of telling if this was a

man-made modification and those things

are not present in this virus in this

sequence and so any speculation there's

no basis for any speculation on that

there's also been speculation on whether

this was the result of a biosafety

incident where there was accidental

release and again you know currently

there is no information to suggest

that was the case because at the Wuhan

Institute etc there was no you know

people didn't fall sick and you know

there wasn't and there wasn't a virus

that was you know identical in sequence

etc so um again you know I think as we

speak there is a wh o panel that is

currently in China that is looking into

this and I'm sure they will produce a

report but from all indications this was

Mother Nature I think we underestimate

what Mother Nature is capable of

producing and so you know this was a bad

virus that made its way to humans and

then now it's all over the world so

thank you very much for marina and dr.

Purcell dr. Martin do you have any

comment okay okay so summary we also

have a question here if you have a

research that is sort of to be dual use

research of concern is it advisable to

publish it in an open access journal

it's a principle and risk benefit

assessment whenever you are planning

communication of this type of research

which is a D you are C you always do

risk benefit assessment before planning

your communication so as for your risk

benefit assessment you will decide

whether you are going to publish it in

full or you want to read X of

information or whether you want to

publish it or in open access and to

everyone or you want to extract some

information so this all depends on risk

benefit assessment and this can vary

from one research to another and

majority of the cases they the

scientific community has supported open

publication like they they supported

giving access to all researchers around

the world but definitely it depends upon

the risk as well if the risk of

communicating it in open access general

is very high then definitely the

communication would plan accordingly

so there's no one it varies from one

research to another so there is no one

answer to this question whether you are

will do it always

or you cannot do it okay so thank you

summary so we have here another question

for dr. Prasad from Jade email really of

essential questions regarding genetic

modification under engineering so a

nation should have a policy and

oversight for this technology does the

world have a governing body for this

different nation have different agendas

belief and policy is there an

international body that can control and

is there sanction or penalties when

present so currently there isn't a

dedicated international body for this

but for example if there are experiments

on humans that would be under the

purview of World Health Organization

approvals for animals CRISPR animals and

generated animals etc should in

principle be reviewed by ie and also at

the biological weapons convention which

most countries in the world are

signatories to there is now increasing

awareness and there's increasing talk

about measures that countries should

take and in order to reduce the risk of

all of this but to to answer your

question there is no single body that is

able to review these kinds of things and

and it's going to be very challenging to

do that because remember that remember

that if you require lengthy review

process and approval processes and

things like that that will significantly

affect your bio economy and so no

country wants to you know be

disadvantaged when it comes to the

economy and when it comes to growing

biotechnology so the solutions will have

to be it

it will have to be carefully calibrated

and this is one of the challenges that

we face okay thank you

so we have here a very interesting

question which can be answered by dr.

Prasad and the rest of the speakers do

you think the moral restrictions hinder

the progress of gene-editing science

what is your personal take about the

application of gene editing on humans do

you approve why or why not

this is from Lee Marvin okay I can start

and then I'll pass it on to my

colleagues

so bioethics is critically important I

think that's what you mean by moral

responsibility ethics is not something

that everyone learns in school or in

college or later on at the job site

ethics is also you know I believe me I

have actually taken ethics classes that

have been so boring that you know it's

hard to stay awake the way that ethics

are currently taught and so we have to

we have to make changes we have to make

changes to make sure that people have

when they are thinking about ethics they

have real-life examples real-life

dilemmas like the one that summary

imposed you know when when people that

this influence the research and they

wanted to publish it that was also an

ethics question should that kind of to

ask the question should research be

conducted or should research not be

conducted it's yes it's a risk benefit

analysis but it's also a bioethics

analysis you know and and especially

given all the controversies that are

taking place around kovat 19 whether it

was man-made whether it was an accident

etc more and more those of us who do

scientific research will have to explain

to our communities what we are doing how

risky it is and what may

do we have in place to avoid the risk

and so ethics is a big part of this and

so we really have to we really have to

come together and invest in this and

when it comes to human and gene editing

I think that you know there are two

types here one is germline editing where

essentially you are affecting germline

cells and therefore you are affecting

future generations I am in favor of a

moratorium on that I don't think we are

in a place where you know we should be

trying those kinds of experiments but on

the other hand the example that I showed

you where you can correct a person's

vision by taking the cells modifying

repairing the genetic mutation and

putting it back or you know doing it in

vivo those kinds of things should be

allowed in my mind because a if you make

that change that does not get passed on

so those are that's the distinction I

would make some reen how do you see this

as dual use research of concern I think

because their research if there's not

one person can master in all types of

research and usually we see that maybe

code of conduct development of code of

conduct in each and every organization

can help people understand the ethical

values but and what they are needed to

or require to do but this is also there

is also one thing can add that code of

conduct always helps those who want to

follow it it is not for people who don't

follow it the code of conduct also have

some limitations so maybe one thing can

be developing a code of conduct in each

organization and following it maybe you

can develop a national code of conduct

and then institution code of conduct for

this particular type of research which

is being conducted in all universities

okay so for thank you very much to all

our speakers and thank you for the

participants for all your questions for

those whose questions were not read we

will try to collate all your questions

so the speakers can address it later and

thank you so much for your active

participation in jury engaging open

forum thank you so much so will now

proceed to the synthesis of the session

so the next session is indeed very

interesting and fruitful so you would

like to thank when it once again our

three speakers for discussing the

biosecurity with the dual trends and

emerging technologies so doctor Moreno

our first speaker highlights the basic

concepts of biosafety and biosecurity as

well as mentioned the milestones OB

rapid vomit in the last decade here in

the Philippines he also presented the

new pillars of biosecurity emphasizing

the dual use research of concern and

emerging technologies as a way of

introducing the next two topics of our

speakers

so dr. summary discussed the concepts of

dual-use research of concerns she also

showed us why is it very important to to

know about it and how to identify its

categories and in the event that we know

we have dual use research of concern

she also discussed on what to do about

it how to do risk benefit assessment and

how to develop a risk mitigation and

communication and responsible

communication plan and lastly dr. Prasad

introduced to us synthetic biology and

its applications as well as on how to

mitigate the risk of the applications of

synthetic biology and how to strengthen

biosecurity measures against the new

biosecurity tracks so indeed the three

talks are very timely during this time

with a current situation that we have

synthetic biology as well as dual use

research of concern as it has its

benefits as well as the risk so our

speakers of discuss on water

the risks and the benefits and how to

make that the next session will create a

big impact on our own facilities and our

own institutions on the way we see

biosecurity in this modern age so thank

you very much

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Laboratory Biosecurity 2020: A Focus on Dual Use Research of Concern and Emerging Biotechnology_