Brian Rappert describes a new experiment

We have all heard statements that we are entering a new age of biotechnology.

Yet in the context of recent heightened concerns about security, such revolutionary claims also raise a worrying prospect. Might new biotechnological knowledge generated through civilian research not only be used to help prevent the spread of disease, but also be turned to further its spread through new weapons?

Together with Malcolm Dando of the University of Bradford, I have been engaging with biologists round the world, encouraging them to think about the implications of these issues for the communication of their research.

Dual-use biology

As in the training of former Iraqi bioweapon scientists in Britain, the life sciences have already met such issues. Yet in recent years – particularly in Europe and North America – national science academies, professional organisations and government agencies have been examining in what manner the fundamental knowledge gained as part of advanced research might enable states, terrorists or even sociopaths to produce bioweapons.
Work published in 2005 about the so-called 1918 Spanish Flu has been perhaps the most prominent dual-use example. In that year, Nature published the sequence for much of the virus’s genome, and Science described how it was artificially reconstructed within a lab.

An influenza virus responsible for tens of millions of deaths, that had been gone for nearly a century, was brought back into the world. Details about how this could be done were made widely available.

Engaging biologists

The future possibilities of such research raises a number of questions about the responsibilities of those associated with biology. These questions are made all the more demanding given the historical lack of engagement of life science communities in international efforts to prohibit biological weapons.

In response, we have conducted nearly 80 seminar workshops with practising scientists and students over the last three years. These have involved over 2,000 participants in 11 countries as diverse as the UK, Kenya, Japan, Argentina, and Israel.

The intent of the seminars has been two¬fold. First, we want to inform participants about current science and security debates. Second, we want to generate discussion about how research findings should be communicated, what experiments should be subject to institutional oversight, as well as projects funded in relation to matters of biosecurity.

Our aim is to find ways of promoting debate between colleagues and students. To this end, the seminars are set up as question and answer sessions built around cases and policies, somewhat akin in form to focus groups.

Testing responses

During the discussion we seek to make explicit what was implicit in the responses given. For example, relatively few participants show that they are already aware of the security debates about their research. When we raise the question of what should be done or communicated, given security concerns, the vast majority of initial reactions could be characterised as, ‘We need to know’. Nearly everyone’s first reaction is that research that raises dual-use concerns should be widely undertaken and communicated for peaceful and defensive reasons.

We have sought to spur debate by then testing the limits of such responses. That has meant scrutinising matters such as ‘Who is the “we” that needs to know?’ and ‘What is the “it” that needs to be known?’ For instance, while few participants have suggested that contentious science manuscripts should not be published or altered in some way, they have generally been divided about whether scientists should communicate their concerns to the general population.

Finding out why this was so, despite the importance often attached to ‘needing to know’, has been one way of making the diversity of reasoning open for debate.

Outcomes of discussion

In probing thinking, many issues have become topics for discussion. These include the relation between publicity and funding, the assumed competencies of states and terrorists, the ease of replicating experiments, as well as the trust held in the media, government and the public.

We have found that, through engaging with participants’ thinking in this manner, it is
Seminars aim to avoid dangerous applications possible to promote an atmosphere of mutual learning and engage scientists in debates about generally unrecognised possibilities with their research.

The goal now is to extend the audience for the seminars beyond scientists so as to get them and policy makers interacting together about possible policy initiatives in a way that fosters mutual appreciation geared towards practical action.

Reference

The research mentioned in this article has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the Alfred
P. Sloan Foundation. More information about the seminars can be found at www.ex.ac.uk/codesofconduct

The themes of this article are examined in Brian Rappert (2007), Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits: An Inquiry into Research and Methods (Palgrave)

Dr Brian Rappert is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Exeter