The rapidly increasing power and rapidly decreasing cost of advanced biotechnology has made lab-generated pandemics a threat to the survival of the human species. Remarkably, despite the major risks to the public, dangerous “gain-of-function” research that enhances potential pandemic pathogens (ePPP research) is subject to almost no national or international oversight. Moreover, to date, the public largely has been unaware of, and excluded from, discussion of this threat.
Biosafety Now, is a non-governmental organization that advocates for reducing numbers of high-level biocontainment laboratories and for strengthening biosafety, biosecurity, and biorisk management for research on pathogens. We seek comprehensive, legally-binding, national- and international-level oversight to foresee, regulate, and ultimately minimize the risks to the public of research with potentially dangerous pathogens. We are convinced that public health and safety require that all such research be subject to independent external controls, rather than be trusted to the oversight of the experimenters themselves.
Sign our petition to ban gain-of-function research
Sign up for our Substack newsletter
July 20, 2024
Biosafety Now co-founder Bryce Nickels and Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya publish an OpEd in the NY Post titled: “Why science should never try to triumph over nature“ that calls on Congress to enact and implement independent oversight for research that represents an existential risk to humanity.
July 10, 2024
Biosafety Now co-founders Richard H. Ebright and Bryce Nickels provide statements in support of the Risky Research Review Act, a first-of-its-kind proposal to establish a Life Sciences Research Security Board within the Executive Branch. This independent board will oversee the funding of gain-of-function research and other high-risk life sciences research that potentially poses a threat to public health, safety, or national security.
“I have closely reviewed the legislative proposal, and I strongly support the legislative proposal. The gaps in current US oversight of research on potential pandemic pathogens place the US at risk of research-related pandemics, with medical, economic, and national-security impacts as disruptive and damaging as, or even more disruptive and damaging than, those of the COVID-19 pandemic. Addressing the gaps in oversight is essential and urgent. The legislative proposal sets forth an approach to close the gaps in oversight and, appropriately, addresses only the small subset of biomedical research that poses highest risk (with definitions tailored to cover less than 0.1% of biomedical research) and balances the need for strengthened oversight with the need not to constrain biomedical research that could provide positive medical, industrial, or national-security value. The proposal sets forth an approach that will close the gaps with minimal costs and minimal adverse impacts. Thank you in advance for your leadership in considering and approving this legislation.”
“Senator Paul’s legislation to establish the Risky Research Review Board is both necessary and urgent. It addresses major shortcomings in both the current guidelines for oversight of high-risk pathogen research and the new guidelines scheduled to take effect in 2025. Critically, the legislation would replace decades of self-regulation with an independent oversight mechanism for federally funded high-risk pathogen research, the first of its kind. This is much-needed, common-sense legislation that, unlike the existing guidelines and those scheduled to take effect in 2025, will safeguard the public from the threat of lab-generated pandemics.”
June 18, 2024
Biosafety Now co-founder Richard Ebright testifies at a historic bipartisan Senate hearing on the origins of COVID-19.
June 14, 2024
Members of Biosafety Now joined other prominent scientists in calling for retraction of three scientifically unsound papers on the origin of COVID-19. These papers are based on invalid premises and conclusions, or are potentially products of scientific misconduct — including fraud.
Click here to read the letter requesting the retraction of “The Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan was the early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic” by Worobey et al. (1) and “The molecular epidemiology of multiple zoonotic origins of SARS-CoV-2” by Pekar et al., (2) published on July 26, 2022, in Science. This letter was sent to the editor in chief of Science on June 14, 2024.
Click here to read the letter requesting the retraction of “No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2” by Liu, et al., published online in Emerging Microbes & Infections on February 26, 2020. This letter was sent to Emerging Microbes & Infections on June 14, 2024.
June 13, 2024
Biosafety Now co-founder Bryce Nickels and Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya conducted a live interview with Senator Rand Paul on X to discuss the bipartisan hearing on COVID origins taking place on June 18.
May 14, 2024
Several members of Biosafety Now signed an open letter calling for retraction of “Proximal Origins” to Dr. Joao Montiero, the chief editor of Nature Medicine. This is the second formal request to retract “Proximal Origins.” The first request, submitted on July 26, 2023, can be found here.
March 27, 2024
Biosafety Now is now on Substack! Biosafety Now is excited to announce we will now be hosting our newsletter on Substack! Sign up to receive content from members of Biosafety Now as well as other prominent biosafety advocates, such as weekly essays from renowned virologist Simon Wain-Hobson.
March 15, 2024
Leadership Team member Raina MacIntyre published a study suggesting COVID-19 more likely originated from a lab than animals. Read Raina’s essay that explains the significance of her new analysis of COVID-19’s origin.
March 13, 2024
Ten members of Biosafety Now’s Leadership Team are co-authors on a letter published in the Journal of Virology titled: “Implementing governmental oversight of enhanced potential pandemic pathogen research.”
February 27, 2024
Leadership Team Members Megan Gafford and Bryce Nickels joined Jonathan Latham, Jacob Eliosoff, Emily Kopp, Alina Chan, Matt Ridley, and Austin Lin in NYC to deliver our Petition to Retract Proximal Origins to Nature Medicine’s office.
February 12, 2024
Biosafety Now is pleased to announce that selected essays from Alex Washburne’s substack, A Biologist’s Guide to Life, will also be posted on our website.
February 6, 2024
January 24, 2024
On reading, by Simon Wain-Hobson is a weekly discussion of scientific papers and news articles around gain of function research in virology. New essays will be posted each Wednesday.
January 21, 2024
Biosafety Now hosted an X Space titled “COVID-19: evidence for a synthetic origin,” where scientists Alina Chan, Alex Washburne, Valentin Bruttel, and Tony VanDongen joined Justin Kinney, and Bryce Nickels to discuss the scientific evidence for a synthetic origin of SARS-CoV-2.
January 17, 2024
Richard H. Ebright and Bryce Nickels, joined Simon Wain-Hobson as guests on the Earl Ingram Show to discuss “gain-of-function” research and Assembly Bill 413 which would prohibit this research. Click here to learn more.
