Center for Security Studies

No. 88: Progress in Biotechnology as a Future Security Policy Challenge

No. 88: Progress in Biotechnology as a Future Security Policy Challenge

Author(s): Sergio Bonin
Editor(s): Daniel Möckli
Series: CSS Analyses in Security Policy
Issue: 88
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich
Publication Year: 2011

Biological weapons do not figure prominently in current threat analyses. However, this might change with advances in biotechnology, and synthetic biology in particular. If the synthetic construction and modification of bacteria and viruses should become a reality, a broad range of useful applications in medicine, environmental protection, and other fields would be facilitated. At the same time, however, constructing biological weapons could become easier, and the necessary skills would be available to a larger spectrum of actors. It seems advisable to explore preventive countermeasures at an early stage.

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