Whether it’s the re emergence of pathogens trapped in melting permafrost or the spread of incurable crop plant diseases, biosecurity is a subject of mounting import on the global stage. At the Seventh International Meeting on Synthetic Biology, an entire session will be dedicated to this critical topic featuring five panelists who represent some of the world’s most important leaders in biosecurity. Together they will speak about the relationship between biosecurity and synthetic biology, including how the field can minimize its associated risks while maximizing its many benefits.The panel for Session 8: Security will include Piers Millett, a Senior Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute as well as a consultant for the World Health Organization. His expertise is in deliberate disease, or biological agents that are intentionally developed and disseminated to cause harm. Until 2014, he was the Deputy Head of the Implementation Support Unit for the Biological Weapons Convention, the United Nations treaty banning development and possession of weapons constituting biological toxins or infectious agents. He is well-published on the BWC as well as on biological weapons and public health emergencies more broadly. In addition, he is the cofounder of Biosecure, a biosecurity consulting firm, and of the Safety Committee for the iGEM competition.David Evans is the Vice-Dean of Research and a Professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Alberta. His lab specializes in poxviruses, including human smallpox and the myxomatosis virus in rabbits. Although smallpox was the first and only human disease to be fully eradicated, it is still considered one of the most serious bioterror threats due to its high fatality and infectiousness. Dr. Evans’ research seeks to understand all aspects of pox virology, from elucidating the infection and proliferation process through fluorescent microscopy to decoding the complete viral genome using next-generation sequencing technologies. In addition to conducting research at UA, he is a member of the World Health Organization Advisory Committee on Variola (smallpox) Virus. Megan Palmer is a Senior Research Scholar and William J. Perry Fellow in the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is also the Deputy Director of policy-related research program at the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center. She is a leading thinker in the development best practices for safe and responsible biotechnology research and lends this expertise in advising multiple organizations, from the iGEM competition to the Joint Genomics Institute. Dr. Palmer’s particular interest and skillset lies at the intersection of synthetic biology and biosecurity, especially in understanding and articulating the kind of governance and structures that are needed to create the synbio-enabled future we all want.Elizabeth Cameron is the Senior Director for Global Biological Policy and Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit NGO that works to implement security projects to protect against nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. Prior to this she was the Senior Director for Global Health Security and Biodefense on the White House National Security Council staff. There, Dr. Cameron was lead the launch of the Global Health Security Agenda, an international partnership committed to improving the world’s ability to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious diseases. She has extensive experience in working with a wide variety of stakeholders to bring about actionable improvement in the realm of biosecurity.Gigi Kwik Gronvall is a Senior Associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and a Visiting Faculty is at John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Gronvall’s work investigates how to balance the risks and benefits of synthetic biology, as well as what role scientists might play in shaping this tradeoff. She is the author of the recently-published book Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Promise, which explores these very topics in great detail. Dr. Gronvall sits on the U.S.’s Threat Reduction Advisory Committee and formerly served as Science Advisor for the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction and Proliferation of Terrorism. She has advised a number of different foreign and domestic government agencies on the issues of biosecurity, bioterror, and containment.