Create a page on biological weapons. This could include, for instance,
An overview of offensive BW programs over time (when they were started, stopped, funding, staffing, etc.; perhaps with a separate section on the Soviet BW program)
An overview of different international treaties relating to BW, including timelines and membership over time (i.e., the Geneva Protocol, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), Australia Group, UN Security Council Resolution 1540)
Submissions of Confidence-Building Measures in the BWC over time (including as a percentage of the # of BWC States Parties and split in publicly-accessible and restricted-access)
A graph that visually compares the funding and # of staff in international organizations for the bioweapons regime compared to chemical and nuclear weapons (e.g., the BWC Implentation Support Unit compared to OPCW for chemical and the IAEA and CTBTO PrepCom for nuclear)
(Perhaps include an overview on the global proliferation of high-biosafety labs, e.g. see Global Biolabs)
(Perhaps include a section on how technological advancements may affect the BW threat, e.g., include a graph on the Carlson curve (Moore’s law but for DNA sequencing))
(This does sound useful, though I’d note this is also a relatively sensitive area and OWID are—thankfully! - a quite prominent site, so OWID may wish to check in with global catastrophic biorisk researchers regarding whether anything they’d intend to include on such a page might be best left out.)
Create a page on biological weapons. This could include, for instance,
An overview of offensive BW programs over time (when they were started, stopped, funding, staffing, etc.; perhaps with a separate section on the Soviet BW program)
An overview of different international treaties relating to BW, including timelines and membership over time (i.e., the Geneva Protocol, the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), Australia Group, UN Security Council Resolution 1540)
Submissions of Confidence-Building Measures in the BWC over time (including as a percentage of the # of BWC States Parties and split in publicly-accessible and restricted-access)
A graph that visually compares the funding and # of staff in international organizations for the bioweapons regime compared to chemical and nuclear weapons (e.g., the BWC Implentation Support Unit compared to OPCW for chemical and the IAEA and CTBTO PrepCom for nuclear)
(Perhaps include an overview on the global proliferation of high-biosafety labs, e.g. see Global Biolabs)
(Perhaps include a section on how technological advancements may affect the BW threat, e.g., include a graph on the Carlson curve (Moore’s law but for DNA sequencing))
(This does sound useful, though I’d note this is also a relatively sensitive area and OWID are—thankfully! - a quite prominent site, so OWID may wish to check in with global catastrophic biorisk researchers regarding whether anything they’d intend to include on such a page might be best left out.)
Thank you! Just FYI, on (6) we have:
Cost of sequencing a full human genome
Number of human genome base pairs sequenced per US$
Cost per Megabase (Mb) of human genome DNA sequencing
Data on gene synthesis costs would also be valuable.
Not much yet, but on (5) we now have this world map: Number of biosafety level 4 facilities