ULM Research and Sponsored Programs
Recent terrorist threats and events have prompted federal government, as well as research community, to raise the awareness over "dual use" research. "Dual use" research is not a recent phenomena. However, concerns over this legitimate scientific work that could be misused to threaten public health or national security, have grown as the potential for terrorism increases.

The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) has defined "dual use research of concern" as

research that, based on current understanding, can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied by others to pose a threat to public health and safety, agriculture, plants, animals, the environment, or materiel. 

So, what are criteria for identifying dual use research of concern? According to the NSABB, careful consideration should be given to knowledge, products, or technologies that do the following:

  • Enhance the harmful consequences of a biological agent or toxin.

  • Disrupt immunity or the effectiveness of an immunization without clinical and/or agricultural justification.

  • Confer to a biological agent or toxin resistance to clinically and/or agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against that agent or toxin, or facilitate their ability to evade detection methodologies .

  • Increase the stability of, transmissibility of, or ability to disseminate a biological agent or toxin.

  • Alter the host range or tropism of a biological agent or toxin.

  • Enhance the susceptibility of a host population.

  • Generate a novel pathogenic agent or toxin, or reconstitute an eradicated or extinct biological agent.

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