Thanks for this post! I agree with your point about being careful on terms, and thought it might be useful to collect a few definitions together in a comment.
DURC (Dual-Use Research of Concern)
DURC is defined differently by different organizations. The WHO defines it as:
research that is intended to provide a clear benefit, but which could easily be misapplied to do harm
life sciences research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies 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
ePPP (enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen)
ePPP is a term (in my experience) mostly relevant to the US regulatory context, and was set out in the 2017 HHS P3CO Framework as follows:
A potential pandemic pathogen (PPP) is a pathogen that satisfies both of the following:
It is likely highly transmissible and likely capable of wide and uncontrollable spread in human populations; and
It is likely highly virulent and likely to cause significant morbidity and/or mortality in humans.
An enhanced PPP is defined as a PPP resulting from the enhancement of the transmissibility
and/or virulence of a pathogen. Enhanced PPPs do not include naturally occurring pathogens
that are circulating in or have been recovered from nature, regardless of their pandemic
potential.
One way in which this definition has been criticized (quoting the recent NSABB report on updating the US biosecurity oversight framework) is that “research involving the enhancement of pathogens that do not meet the PPP definition (e.g., those with low or moderate virulence) but is anticipated to result in the creation of a pathogen with the characteristics described by the PPP definition could be overlooked.”
GOF (Gain-of-Function)
GOF is not a term that I know to have a clear definition. In the linked Virology under the microscope paper, examples range from making Arabidopsis (a small flowering model plant) more drought-resistant to making H5N1 (avian influenza) transmissible between mammals. I suggest avoiding this term if you can. (The paper acknowledges the term is fuzzily defined, citing The shifting sands of ‘gain-of-function’ research.)
Biosafety, biosecurity, biorisk
The definitions you gave in the footnote seem solid, and similar to the ones I’d offer, though one runs into competing definitions (e.g. the definition provided for biosafety doesn’t mention unintentional exposure). I will note that EA tends to treat “biosecurity” as an umbrella term for “reducing biological risk” in a way that doesn’t reflect its usage in the biosecurity or public health communities. Also, as far as I can tell, Australia means a completely different thing by “biosecurity” than the rest of the English-speaking world, which will sometimes lead to confusing Google results.
Thanks for this post! I agree with your point about being careful on terms, and thought it might be useful to collect a few definitions together in a comment.
DURC (Dual-Use Research of Concern)
DURC is defined differently by different organizations. The WHO defines it as:
while the definition given in the 2012 US government DURC policy is:
ePPP (enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogen)
ePPP is a term (in my experience) mostly relevant to the US regulatory context, and was set out in the 2017 HHS P3CO Framework as follows:
One way in which this definition has been criticized (quoting the recent NSABB report on updating the US biosecurity oversight framework) is that “research involving the enhancement of pathogens that do not meet the PPP definition (e.g., those with low or moderate virulence) but is anticipated to result in the creation of a pathogen with the characteristics described by the PPP definition could be overlooked.”
GOF (Gain-of-Function)
GOF is not a term that I know to have a clear definition. In the linked Virology under the microscope paper, examples range from making Arabidopsis (a small flowering model plant) more drought-resistant to making H5N1 (avian influenza) transmissible between mammals. I suggest avoiding this term if you can. (The paper acknowledges the term is fuzzily defined, citing The shifting sands of ‘gain-of-function’ research.)
Biosafety, biosecurity, biorisk
The definitions you gave in the footnote seem solid, and similar to the ones I’d offer, though one runs into competing definitions (e.g. the definition provided for biosafety doesn’t mention unintentional exposure). I will note that EA tends to treat “biosecurity” as an umbrella term for “reducing biological risk” in a way that doesn’t reflect its usage in the biosecurity or public health communities. Also, as far as I can tell, Australia means a completely different thing by “biosecurity” than the rest of the English-speaking world, which will sometimes lead to confusing Google results.
Thanks!! This is great additional detail.