Reducing gain-of-function research on potentially pandemic pathogens
Biorisk
Lab outbreaks and other lab accidents with infectious pathogens happen regularly. When such accidents happen in labs that work on gain-of-function research (on potentially pandemic pathogens), the outcome could be catastrophic. At the same time, the usefulness of gain-of-function research seems limited; for example, none of the major technological innovations that helped us fight COVID-19 (vaccines, testing, better treatment, infectious disease modelling) was enabled by gain-of-function research. We’d like to see projects that reduce the amount of gain-of-function research done in the world, for example by targeting coordination between journals or funding bodies, or developing safer alternatives to gain-of-function research.
Additional notes:
There are many stakeholders In the research system (funders, journals, scientists, hosting institutions, hosting countries). I think the concentration of power is strongest in journals: there are only a few really high profile life-science journals(*). Currently, they do publish gain-of-function research. Getting high-profile journals to coordinate against publishing such research would strongly reduce incentives for academic researchers. There is plenty of precedent for collaboration between journals, such as
essentially all journals agreed to publish COVID research in Open Access (2016 Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergencies)
essentially all journals agree to not publish research with human participants if there was no ethics committee approval for this research
essentially all journals agree on requiring authors to state their conflicts of interest
(*) Super roughly:
Tier 1: Science, Nature
Tier 2: Nature Medicine, Cell, (maybe some other Nature family journals)
Tier 3: Some more Nature family journals, Science Advances, PNAS, several others
-> If three publishers (Science, Nature Gropu, Cell Press) coordinated, this would cover all tier 1 and tier 2 journals, and a large part of tier 3 journals.
Reducing gain-of-function research on potentially pandemic pathogens
Biorisk
Lab outbreaks and other lab accidents with infectious pathogens happen regularly. When such accidents happen in labs that work on gain-of-function research (on potentially pandemic pathogens), the outcome could be catastrophic. At the same time, the usefulness of gain-of-function research seems limited; for example, none of the major technological innovations that helped us fight COVID-19 (vaccines, testing, better treatment, infectious disease modelling) was enabled by gain-of-function research. We’d like to see projects that reduce the amount of gain-of-function research done in the world, for example by targeting coordination between journals or funding bodies, or developing safer alternatives to gain-of-function research.
Additional notes:
There are many stakeholders In the research system (funders, journals, scientists, hosting institutions, hosting countries). I think the concentration of power is strongest in journals: there are only a few really high profile life-science journals(*). Currently, they do publish gain-of-function research. Getting high-profile journals to coordinate against publishing such research would strongly reduce incentives for academic researchers. There is plenty of precedent for collaboration between journals, such as
essentially all journals agreed to publish COVID research in Open Access (2016 Statement on Data Sharing in Public Health Emergencies)
essentially all journals agree to not publish research with human participants if there was no ethics committee approval for this research
essentially all journals agree on requiring authors to state their conflicts of interest
(*) Super roughly:
Tier 1: Science, Nature
Tier 2: Nature Medicine, Cell, (maybe some other Nature family journals)
Tier 3: Some more Nature family journals, Science Advances, PNAS, several others
-> If three publishers (Science, Nature Gropu, Cell Press) coordinated, this would cover all tier 1 and tier 2 journals, and a large part of tier 3 journals.