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.
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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.
