Dual Use Issues in the Life Sciences: Challenges and Opportunities for Education in an Emerging Area of Scientific Responsibility

The life sciences offer tremendous promise in meeting complex interdisciplinary challenges in areas such as food, health, energy, and the environment in the coming century. As a recent National Research Council (NRC) report notes, Years of research have generated detailed information about the components of the complex systems that characterize life—genes, cells, organisms, ecosystems—and this knowledge has begun to fuse into greater understanding of how all those components work together as systems. … The life sciences have reached a point where a new level of inquiry is possible, a level that builds on the strengths of the traditional research establishment but provides a framework to draw on those strengths and focus them on large questions whose answers would provide many practical benefits. (NRC, 2009a , pp. 12–13) In parallel with the excitement generated by the rapid pace and global nature of developments in the life sciences, concerns have grown that these advances have the potential to yield knowledge, tools, and techniques that could be misused for biological weapons or bioterrorism. This is the so-called dual use dilemma—the possibility that advances in the life sciences intended for legitimate and beneficent purposes might also be used for malevolent ends (NRC, 2004 , p. 1). Examples of research with dual use potential that have stimulated controversy include reconstruction of the 1918 pandemic influenza virus (Gibbs et al., 2001 ) and the genetic engineering of plants such as tobacco to produce toxin proteins for vaccination (Wang et al., 2001 ).1 The 2001 mailing of letters containing lethal anthrax, which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has concluded was perpetrated by a U.S. scientist, represents a widely known example of actual misuse of biological materials (FBI, 2008 ). Thus an understanding that scientists have responsibilities to uphold standards of ethics and integrity in the conduct of their work, and a recognition that scientific developments exist within a social context, needs to be embedded into the education of current and future biologists. As the third edition of On Being a Scientist, the National Academies’ introduction to responsible conduct of research, notes, The standards of science extend beyond responsibilities that are internal to the scientific community. Researchers also have a responsibility to reflect on how their work and the knowledge they are generating might be used in the broader society. (National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, 2009 , p. 48) There have been increasing calls to incorporate discussions about the potential security implications of scientific developments into the education of students and practitioners at multiple educational levels (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008 ; Federation of American Societies in Experimental Biology, 2009 ; NRC, 2009b ). However, many scientists and educators themselves currently lack awareness of this topic,2 of how or why they might wish to incorporate it into their courses, and of why their input is critical to ongoing policy discussions. A committee of the NRC's Board on Life Sciences recently sought to address these issues to call attention to the range of materials that exist and to recommend steps to integrate this topic into a variety of educational forums.