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An article and funding on “Dual-use research and research using enhanced pathogens in high-income countries: whose business?"

In a new opinion piece in the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) journal mSphere, CPLB director Nir Eyal, senior Tanzanian doctor Melkizedeck Leshabari, and senior Bangladeshi public health scholar Malabika Sarker argue that it would be in the interests of virologists and only appropriate if regulation of virological research with the potential to lead to new pandemics (including “gain-of-function research of concern”) were shaped by many voices from outside virology and from many nations.

Following that work, Nir Eyal obtained generous funding from Open Philanthropy to encourage such global conversation and to explore a political-philosophy question: which national health policy decisions should be subject to public deliberation, including global public deliberation, and which are best left to professional experts?