Dual-use research dilemma refers to the quandary of producing and publishing research in the life sciences that is directed towards or intended to improve public health, animal health or agricultural productivity, but that could be used to harm public health in the hands of a rogue state, terrorist group or individual.

One of the technical difficulties for research scientists in life sciences is the dual-use research dilemma in life sciences.  This is because academic scholars are supposed to have intellectual independence, and their research should not be discontinued because some external committee/government may not be politically appealed by the findings from these probes.  Another reason is that research scholars have a responsibility to share study findings to the public. Intellectual inquiry is not only a human right, but it’s also a productive activity.  

Knowledge, for example, is a means to other commodities, including economic well-being.

Dual-use research becomes a concern since, in most circumstances, the scientific researcher has only good intentions.  

Rather, the issue for the researcher occurs because of the potential actions of others.

Malevolent non-researchers may take the researcher’s harmful biological agents, and may use the results of the original researcher’s study for malevolent purposes.  

The hostile motives in question include bioterrorism, biowarfare and financial blackmail – for instance, the mousepox virus research quandary. 

On the one hand, the mousepox virus research programme could have resulted in a genetically-designed sterility therapy that would have assisted in combating recurring mouse plagues in Australia. 

On the other hand, this research project should not have been pursued because it resulted in the creation of a highly-virulent strain of mousepox, and the possibility of the creation of a highly-virulent strain of smallpox resistant to available vaccines by, say, a terrorist group planning a biological attack. 

However, measures have been put in place in recent years to appraise specific types of scientific research, notably in relation to scientific knowledge transmission. 

For example, the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has taken on an advisory function in respect to the publication of microbiological research deemed to be at risk of misuse.  Nonetheless, there is no framework for scientific governance entities to conduct use assessments for many possible dual-use problems.  

While most countries have institutional review boards and research ethics committees, they are not routinely trained to examine the danger that scientific research knowledge will be exploited.  

Their primary concern is the method through which the scientific task will be carried out.  Furthermore, research that does not include human subjects is not normally subjected to ethical assessment – even though it may pose dual-use issues. 

Similarly, though many research funders take into account the likely desirable uses of scientific knowledge when making decisions about which scientific projects to fund, most do not consider the risk that the knowledge will be used in undesirable ways. 

It is, thus, paramount to have policies in place that can regulate scientific publications that have dual-use concerns.

Challenges

The effects of the accelerating speed of technological advance is when legislation and regulations are developing slower than technology and biological agents are getting easier to produce and manipulate. 

In 2002, the synthetic reconstruction of poliovirus, a project that took three years, a year later took only two weeks to reconstruct an equivalently sized virus.

There is an effect of globalisation and internet. Dual-use technologies and knowledge are more widely available.

There are also effects of political changes, and what happens to biological weapons of mass destruction when states collapse.

Way forward

Because of the unpredictability of science and how new technologies completely alter what can be accomplished, understanding how those developing biological applications could be used for malicious intent is a huge problem.  

Thus, the following approaches should be utilised in regulating dual-use research in life sciences. 

There must be a working team in place to oversight dual-use research, which must make recommendations regarding the following: 

The review of research with dual-use potential by local entities and the government. Education of institutions and individuals regarding dual-use research. Personal responsibility and accountability of the researcher to conduct his or her research safely.  Local oversight by the institution through a committee of peer researchers and biosecurity professionals to assure that appropriate facilities, practices, personnel and training are in place. 

The research to be funded has been reviewed by the committee prior to commencement of the experiments.

The establishment of university-based biosafety and biosecurity committees, which will be the final decision-makers in implementing government regulations in university-based research facilities. 

Researchers would be obliged to submit any study plans that fall into dual-use categories for approval. In circumstances when sufficient risks of experimentation are anticipated, the committee would rule that the research endeavour in question should not proceed.

Some of the experiments to review and discuss are those that demonstrate how to render a vaccine ineffective, confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics or antiviral agents, enhance the virulence of a pathogen or render a non-pathogen virulent, as well as those that increase the transmissibility of a pathogen. 

They also alter the host range of a pathogen, enable the evasion of diagnosis and/or detection by established methods, enable the weaponisation of a biological agent or toxin, and attempt to recover/revive past pathogens. 

There should be restrictions on the dissemination of new scientific research that is likely to facilitate the malevolent purposes of bioterrorists is warranted. The scientific community should expand their protocols to include the ethics of dual use.

Moreover, there should be regular scientific conferences, exchange programmes and training on biosecurity by educational programmes/organisations such as the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Global Partnership Initiated Biosecurity Academia for Controlling Health Threats, ICGEB–BWC–TWAS–IAP and the Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity fellowships.

Conclusion

Techniques for determining the types of biological agents that could pose threats and the types of mathematics, software programmes, physical materials and computational tools could enhance biological threats. They must be available to effectively identify and possibly restrict dual-use research. 

These regulations must give legal users unrestricted access to, and possession of, dual-use equipment and biological agents, as these are critical for trade, biotechnology, medical practice, public health, animal welfare and plant protection. That said, it should be noted that the most effective way to defend research from subversion now is for the scientific community to deliberately build a culture of responsible behaviour and genuine scientific engagement in the process of deciding what should be published.

*Professor Lamech M Mwapagha is an associate professor of Medical Biochemistry and the coordinator of the PhD in Natural and Applied Sciences’  programme in the Faculty of Health, Natural Resources and Applied Sciences at the Namibia University of Science and Technology. The opinions expressed in this piece are his own, and not the views of his employer.