Posted by on February 21, 2013 at 09:25 AM EST
OSTP today released for public review and comment a proposed policy aimed at maximizing the benefits of life sciences research while minimizing the odds that the results of such research will be misused. The proposed policy, posted on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Science Safety Security (S3) Website, was crafted collaboratively by several Federal agencies and is now open for public comment for 60 days.
The proposed policy responds to concerns that some important and otherwise beneficial avenues of life science research have the potential to generate information or capacities that, in the wrong hands, could be misused for harmful purposes.
Specifically, the newly proposed policy focuses on the very small fraction of studies with the highest risk of potential misuse, known as dual use research of concern (DURC). For oversight purposes, DURC is defined as “Life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products or technology that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat with broad potential consequences to public health and safety, agricultural crops and other plants, animals, the environment, materiel or national security.”
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