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Committee on Trends in Science and Technology
Relevant to the Biological Weapons Convention:
An International Workshop
Board on Life Sciences
Division on Earth and Life Studies
In cooperation with
Chinese Academy of Sciences
IAP—the Global Network of Science Academies
International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
International Union of Microbiological Societies
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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES PRESS 500 Fifth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20001
NOTICE: The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Gov-
erning Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from
the councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engi -
neering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the committee responsible
for the report were chosen for their special competences and with regard for
appropriate balance.
This project was supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation under Award
2009-12-14, Chinese Academy of Sciences, IAP—the Global Network of Science
Academies, U.K. Global Partnership Programme under Award 2010072600092647,
U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency through TASC under Award 7500080708,
U.S. Department of State under Award SAQMMA10M2776, U.S. National Insti-
tutes of Health under Award N01-OD-4-2139 (Task Order 236), and U.S. National
Academies. The views expressed herein are those of the authors, and the content
of this publication does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the orga -
nizations or agencies that provided support for the project, nor does mention of
trade names, commercial products, or organizations imply endorsement by the
U.S. government.
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-309-21071-3
International Standard Book Number-10: 0-309-21071-2
Additional copies of this report are available from the National Academies Press,
500 Fifth Street, N.W., Lockbox 285, Washington, DC 20055, (800) 624-6242 or (202)
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Copyright 2011 by the National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
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Ralph J. Cicerone is president of the National Academy of Sciences.
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COMMITTEE ON TRENDS IN SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
RELEVANT TO THE BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS CONVENTION:
AN INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
RODERICK J. FLOWER (Chair), Professor of Biochemical
Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary
University of London, United Kingdom
HERNAN CHAIMOVICH, Superintendent General, Butantan
Foundation; Professor of Biochemistry, Universidade de São Paulo,
Brazil
NANCY D. CONNELL, Professor of Infectious Disease, University of
Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, USA
ANDRZEJ GORSKI, Professor of Medicine and Immunology, The
Medical University of Warsaw; Vice President, Polish Academy of
Sciences, Poland
Li HUANG, Director-General, Institute of Microbiology, Chinese
Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
MAXWELL OTIM ONAPA, Deputy Executive Secretary, Uganda
National Council for Science and Technology, Kampala, Uganda
MOHAMED IQBAL PARKER, Professor in Medical Biochemistry,
University of Cape Town; Director, International Centre for Genetic
Engineering and Biotechnology, Cape Town, South Africa
ANDREW PITT, Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Chemical
Biology, School of Health and Life Sciences, Ashton University,
Birmingham, United Kingdom
RALF TRAPP, Consultant, CBW Arms Control and Disarmament,
France
LLOYD WHITMAN, Deputy Director, Center for Nanoscale Science
and Technology, U.S. National Institute of Standards and
Technology, Gaithersburg, MD, USA
Staff
KATHERINE BOWMAN, Study Director and Senior Program Officer,
Board on Life Sciences
KATHRYN HUGHES, Program Officer, Board on Chemical Sciences
and Technology
JO L. HUSBANDS, Scholar/Senior Project Director, Board on Life
Sciences
SAYYEDA AYESHA AHMED, Senior Program Assistant, Board on Life
Sciences
v
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BOARD ON LIFE SCIENCES
KEITH R. YAMAMOTO (Chair), University of California, San
Francisco, California
BONNIE L. BASSLER, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
VICKI L. CHANDLER, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Palo
Alto, California
SEAN EDDY, HHMI Janelia Farm Research Campus, Ashburn, Virginia
MARK D. FITZSIMMONS, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation, Chicago, Illinois
DAVID R. FRANZ, Midwest Research Institute, Frederick, Maryland
LOUIS J. GROSS, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee
RICHARD A. JOHNSON, Arnold and Porter, Washington, DC
CATO T. LAURENCIN, University of Connecticut Health Center,
Farmington, Connecticut
BERNARD LO, University of California, San Francisco, California
ROBERT M. NEREM, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
CAMILLE PARMESAN, University of Texas, Austin, Texas
MURIEL E. POSTON, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York
ALISON G. POWER, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
MARGARET RILEY, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Massachusetts
BRUCE W. STILLMAN, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring
Harbor, New York
CYNTHIA WOLBERGER, Johns Hopkins University School of
Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland
MARY WOOLLEY, Research!America, Alexandria, Virginia
Staff
FRANCES E. SHARPLES, Director
JO L. HUSBANDS, Scholar/Senior Project Director
JAY B. LABOV, Senior Scientist/Program Director for Biology
Education
KATHERINE BOWMAN, Senior Program Officer
MARILEE K. SHELTON-DAVENPORT, Senior Program Officer
INDIA HOOK-BARNARD, Program Officer
KEEGAN SAWYER, Associate Program Officer
ANNA FARRAR, Financial Associate
CARL-GUSTAV ANDERSON, Program Associate
SAYYEDA AYESHA AHMED, Senior Program Assistant
ORIN LUKE, Senior Program Assistant
vi
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Preface
I
n 2006 the Royal Society, in cooperation with the International Coun-
cil for Science, the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (now
IAP—the Global Network of Science Academies), and the U.S. National
Academy of Sciences, organized a workshop that surveyed trends in sci-
ence and technology (S&T). The objective was to provide an indepen -
dent contribution from the international scientific community to the Sixth
Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention
(BWC) that was held in December of that year.
At the time I was serving as chair of the Royal Society standing Com-
mittee on Scientific Aspects of International Security and so became chair
of the S&T trends workshop. Among the lessons we learned from that
workshop were that:
• Inviting researchers to describe the “state of the science” in their
fields was a useful and productive strategy. Subsequent discus-
sions drew out the potential implications of these advances and
remaining challenges for the BWC.
• Input by technical experts from government and the policy com-
munity who engaged with the research scientists at the workshop
was extremely valuable.
• The provision of adequate time for small-group discussion was
important to enable participants to explore topics in greater depth
and detail than was possible in plenary sessions.
vii
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viii PREFACE
• International scientific organizations can make a genuine contribu-
tion by assisting the BWC States Parties to gain a greater appreciation
of the advances taking place in the life sciences and related fields,
including the increasingly global nature of the research enterprise.
We applied the experience we garnered from this meeting when we
embarked on organizing the second international workshop held in Bei-
jing in November 2010. Again, this took the form of a partnership between
several international scientific organizations and national academies.
The three main themes that emerged from this meeting resonate
strongly with my own experience as an active researcher. Take the con-
vergence of disciplines, for example; the major therapeutic advances in
my own area (the pharmacology of inflammation) have come from the
application of biotechnology, and in particular protein engineering, to
the design of anti-inflammatory drugs. The “biologics,” as these agents
are known, have provided relief to countless sufferers from arthritis and
other debilitating diseases. In fact, the very title of my own department—
Biochemical Pharmacology—was originally chosen to indicate the growing
conjunction of two life sciences.
Scientific research has always had a strongly international nature. My
own group collaborates with laboratories around the world to take advan-
tage of complementary skills and training facilities that other laboratories
can offer. While such endeavors were once dependent upon personal
visits or postal exchanges, the advances in communications technologies
now enable us to share data and discuss our work in virtual as much
as in actual laboratory settings. The many similar international efforts
described in the Beijing workshop therefore rang true to me as capturing
the reality of a genuinely global scientific enterprise.
I am very pleased to have had the opportunity to serve as the chair
of the international committee that organized the second workshop and
produced the subsequent report presented here. Planning and mounting
such a conference as this is a daunting undertaking, and there are many
people I would like to thank.
My colleagues on the committee made numerous suggestions for top-
ics and speakers, helping ensure the broad representation of fields and
countries at the workshop. They then played essential roles as session
chairs and in some cases as speakers themselves.
We also benefited greatly from the assistance of the staff of three
national academies, in particular:
• Neil Davison from the Royal Society;
• Katherine Bowman, Kathryn Hughes, Jo Husbands, and Ben Rusek
from the National Research Council of the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences (NAS); and
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ix
PREFACE
• Our hosts, Tao Xu, Institute Director, and members of his staff Lei
Zhang, Xiaoke Xia, and Wei Yang from the Institute of Biophysics
of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
In addition to the practical work of the meeting, they served as rap -
porteurs for the plenary and breakout sessions, and contributed ideas for
the final report. They were joined by James Revill of the University of Sus-
sex, who served as an unpaid consultant and provided valuable support
both during the workshop and to the NAS and Royal Society staff in the
preparation of a subsequent factual summary of the workshop presenta -
tions, which was released in time for the Preparatory Committee of the
BWC Review Conference in April 2011.
Everyone on the staff made significant contributions, but I do want to
offer special thanks to Katherine Bowman. I first met Katie when she was
a Christine Mirzayan Fellow at the National Research Council in 2006 and
worked with us in organizing the first trends workshop. In addition to
her work on the preparations for Beijing, Katie, along with Jo Husbands
and Kate Hughes, made invaluable contributions to the drafting of this
report. Their initial work made the committee’s task much easier, and I
want to express my deep appreciation for their efforts.
Roderick Flower
Chair
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Acknowledgments
T
his report has been reviewed in draft form by individuals chosen
for their diverse perspectives and technical expertise, in accordance
with procedures approved by the National Academies’ Report
Review Committee. The purpose of this independent review is to provide
candid and critical comments that will assist the institution in making its
published report as sound as possible and to ensure that the report meets
institutional standards for objectivity, evidence, and responsiveness to
the study charge. The review comments and draft manuscript remain
confidential to protect the integrity of the process.
We wish to thank the following individuals for their review of this
report:
Robert Butera, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
R. James Cook, Washington State University, USA
Gerald Epstein, American Association for the Advancement of Science,
USA
Lewis R. Goldfrank, New York University, USA
Robert J. Mathews, Defence Science and Technology Organisation,
Australia
Piers Millet, United Nations, Switzerland
Kathryn Nixdorff, Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany
Kaiming Ye, University of Arkansas, USA
Although the reviewers listed above have provided many construc-
tive comments and suggestions, they were not asked to endorse the
xi
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xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
conclusions or recommendations, nor did they see the final draft of
the report before its release. The review of this report was overseen by
Edwin P. Przybylowicz, Eastman Kodak Company (retired). Appointed by
the National Academies, he was responsible for making certain that an
independent examination of this report was carried out in accordance
with institutional procedures and that all review comments were carefully
considered. Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely
with the authoring committee and the institution.
The Institute of Biophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences served
as the host for the workshop in November 2010 and the Director-General,
Dr. Tao Xu, welcomed participants to the event. In addition to the able
leadership of Dr. Lei Zhang, Director of the International Liaison Office,
Mr. Xiaoke Xia and Ms. Wei Yang helped to ensure the smooth and suc-
cessful operation of the workshop.
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Contents
SUMMARY 1
1 Introduction 11
1.1 Background, 11
1.2 The Biological Weapons Convention and S&T, 14
1.3 Advising About S&T: The Growing Role of
International Scientific Organizations, 17
1.4 Potential Positive and Negative Applications of
Advances in the Life Sciences, 20
1.5 Organization of the Report, 23
2 The Pace of Developments in the Life Sciences 25
2.1 Advances in Science and Technology, 25
2.2 Enabling Technologies, 50
2.3 Summary Remarks on Challenges and Opportunities
Related to the Pace of S&T Developments, 58
3 Diffusion of Life Sciences Research Capacity
and Applications 59
3.1 Global R&D Capacity and International Collaborations
in Scientific Research, 59
3.2 Disease Surveillance and Response Systems: A Research
Area That Exemplifies Global Life Sciences Capacity
and International Collaboration Relevant to the BWC, 69
xiii
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xiv CONTENTS
3.3 Microbial Forensics: An Opportunity to Take
Advantage of Growing International S&T Capacity
to Support the BWC, 76
3.4 Doing Life Sciences Research Outside
Traditional Institutions, 78
4 Integration of Multiple Disciplines in Life Sciences Research 81
4.1 The Breadth of Relevant Fields in the Life Sciences
and the Convergence of the Life Sciences with
Other Disciplines, 81
4.2 Examples of Areas in the Life Sciences That Reflect the
Convergence of Multiple Disciplines, 83
4.3 The Convergence of Chemistry and Biology, 85
4.4 Challenges and Opportunities Related to the Integration
of Disciplines in the Life Sciences, 91
5 Monitoring and Assessing Trends in Science and Technology 93
5.1 Drivers and Roadblocks for S&T Development, 94
5.2 The Relevance of S&T to the BWC: Looking Beyond
Article I, 104
5.3 Role of the Scientific Community, 106
5.4 Summing Up: The Committee’s Findings and
Conclusions, 114
REFERENCES 119
APPENDIXES
A Committee Member Biographies 133
B National and International Scientific Organizations
Relevant to the BWC 139
C Workshop Agenda and Participants 143
