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Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents

Our firm conducted a risk/benefit assessment of “gain-of-function” research, as part of the deliberative process following a U.S. moratorium on the research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gai...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ritterson, Ryan, Casagrande, Rocco
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28405626
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00010-17
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author Ritterson, Ryan
Casagrande, Rocco
author_facet Ritterson, Ryan
Casagrande, Rocco
author_sort Ritterson, Ryan
collection PubMed
description Our firm conducted a risk/benefit assessment of “gain-of-function” research, as part of the deliberative process following a U.S. moratorium on the research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses, 2014). Due to significant missing but theoretically acquirable data, our biosafety assessment faced limitations, and we were forced to provide a relative, instead of absolute, measure of risk (Gryphon Scientific, LLC, Risk and Benefit Analysis of Gain of Function Research, 2016). Here, we argue that many of these types of missing data represent large and stunning gaps in our knowledge of biosafety and argue that these missing data, once acquired via primary research efforts, would improve biosafety risk assessments and could be incorporated into biosafety practices to reduce risk of accidents. Governments invest billions in biological research; at least a small fraction of this support is warranted to prevent biological accidents.
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spelling pubmed-53716922017-04-12 Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents Ritterson, Ryan Casagrande, Rocco mSphere Perspective Our firm conducted a risk/benefit assessment of “gain-of-function” research, as part of the deliberative process following a U.S. moratorium on the research (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Government Gain-of-Function Deliberative Process and Research Funding Pause on Selected Gain-of-Function Research Involving Influenza, MERS, and SARS Viruses, 2014). Due to significant missing but theoretically acquirable data, our biosafety assessment faced limitations, and we were forced to provide a relative, instead of absolute, measure of risk (Gryphon Scientific, LLC, Risk and Benefit Analysis of Gain of Function Research, 2016). Here, we argue that many of these types of missing data represent large and stunning gaps in our knowledge of biosafety and argue that these missing data, once acquired via primary research efforts, would improve biosafety risk assessments and could be incorporated into biosafety practices to reduce risk of accidents. Governments invest billions in biological research; at least a small fraction of this support is warranted to prevent biological accidents. American Society for Microbiology 2017-03-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5371692/ /pubmed/28405626 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00010-17 Text en Copyright © 2017 Ritterson and Casagrande. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Perspective
Ritterson, Ryan
Casagrande, Rocco
Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title_full Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title_fullStr Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title_full_unstemmed Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title_short Basic Scholarship in Biosafety Is Critically Needed To Reduce Risk of Laboratory Accidents
title_sort basic scholarship in biosafety is critically needed to reduce risk of laboratory accidents
topic Perspective
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5371692/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28405626
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/mSphere.00010-17
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