Biosecurity

In German the term Biosicherheit covers two aspects: protection against accidents (biosafety) and prevention of misuse of research results (biosecurity). In 2012, viruses modified in a research laboratory making bird flu transmissible between mammals by air gave rise to a new debate on Biosicherheit in the sense of biosecurity. The debate focused on the question how the misuse of research results by bioterrorists can be avoided. In times of global research and communication, promising research and technical developments in the life sciences could be misused to develop bioweapons, which could harm the health of humans or livestock and plants. Furthermore, the question arises whether the growing options for the precise, cost-effective, rapid and low-threshold use of genetic engineering processes will also increase access opportunities for professionally and technically less well-equipped groups of people and thus increase the risk of accidents and abuse. This applies to both, aspects of biosafety and biosecurity.