Bringing Biosecurity to the Forefront of the Synthetic Biology Community

Policy & Public
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September 1, 2016

As we live in an ever-changing world, there’s no better time to bring to the forefront the responsible practices of the biosecurity community around keeping the technologies being developed by the synthetic biology industry both secure and protected from a biosafety, biosecurity and economic security point of view. During the Biosecurity Panel discussion at the upcoming SynBioBeta SF 2016 conference attendees will be fortunate enough to hear from four distinguished leaders in the field of biosecurity: Edward You of the FBI, Renee Wegrzyn of DARPA, Peter Carr of MIT, and Rob Carlson of Bioeconomy Capital.Hailing from sectors across academia, industry, and government, the four panelists will discuss challenges and paths forward for the synthetic biology industry from the point of view of biosafety, biosecurity, and economic security. The panel will take place on October 4th and will be moderated by Dr. Megan J. Palmer of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. In addition to her expertise in security, Dr. Palmer also served as Deputy Director of policy-related research programs at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center and is sure to lead a compelling panel discussion.Read on to get a sneak peek of this exciting group of panelists, their diverse backgrounds, and their place in the world of biosecurity.Edward You of the Federal Bureau of InvestigationEdward You holds the position of Supervisory Special Agent in the Biological Countermeasures Unit of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. Previously he served on the Los Angeles Field Office Joint Terrorism Task Force and Hazardous Evidence Response Team. Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. You conducted research on retrovirology and human gene therapy at University of Southern California.His duties at the FBI include creating and coordinating countermeasures to biological threats as well as identifying future potential biosecurity challenges. Among future sources of biosecurity challenges on his radar include synthetic biology and big data in the life sciences. Mr. You also currently serves as a member on The National Academies’ Forum on Synthetic Biology and Forum on Microbial Threats.Renee Wegrzyn of the Defense Advanced Research Projects AgencyDr. Renee Wegrzyn is a program manager at in the Biological Technologies Office of DARPA. She previously worked for Booz Allen Hamilton as a Senior Lead Biotechnologist. She has expertise in a wide range of biosecurity issues, including biodefense, biosecurity, disruptive technologies, emerging infectious disease, neuromodulation, and synthetic biology.Dr. Wegrzyn received her Ph.D. and B.S. in Applied Biology from Georgia Institute of Technology. Thereafter she served as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow in Heidelberg, Germany. Her interests include leveraging synthetic biology to remain a step ahead of infectious diseases and bolster biosecurity more generally.Peter Carr of Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyDr. Peter Carr is a Senior Scientist in the MIT Lincoln Laboratory. His research there focuses on the use of synthetic biology to expand the boundaries of living systems. Dr. Carr specifically researches tools and methods for rapid prototyping of genetic designs, as well as for risk evaluation and defense in the area of biosecurity. He is interested in the application of engineering principles to biological systems that constitutes the synthetic biology industry.After receiving a B.S. in Biochemistry from Harvard, Dr. Carr received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics from Columbia University and served as a postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute. His past successes include a collaboration with George Church, founder of Gen9, on a technology that is capable of rewriting segments of an organism’s entire genome.Rob Carlson of Bioeconomy CapitalRob Carlson is the managing director of Bioeconomy Capital and a principal at Biodesic LLC, a biological engineering, consulting, and design firm. Mr. Carlson is renowned for his work on technical and economic metrics for the development of the biotechnology industry. He is the theoretician and namesake behind what is now known as the Carlson Curve, which predicted that the doubling time for cost and performance of DNA sequencing technology would at least match Moore’s law.Mr. Carlson has served as a biosecurity consultant to various corporations, domestic and international governments, the United Nations, and the World Health Organization. His current interests include assessing the size of the bioeconomy in order to determine what ought to be defended and from whom. He sees the acceleration in synthetic biology research as being supportive of our ability to promote sound biosecurity measures.“Synthetic biology has definitely contributed to our ability to do good, in particular by accelerating the pace and capability to develop means of detection, understanding, and response,” Carlson said. “It is still early days, to be sure, but we are on the cusp of a complete revolution, first in how we design and build biological systems, and second how those systems are used in manufacturing and in the broader economy. As these capabilities mature, they will dramatically improve our ability to respond to threats from wherever, and whomever, they might arise.”Be sure to attend SynBioBeta SF 2016 this October to hear from these distinguished speakers about ‘Safeguarding our Bioeconomy’ at the South San Francisco Conference Center on October 4th.

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