Brave new world in life sciences

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists features proposals to help protect us from dangers inherent in the merging of GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics).

"The biosciences are converging with information technology, nanotechnology, and materials science in unforeseen ways, yielding remarkable advances that have the potential to cure--or kill. To reduce the likelihood that these discoveries will be exploited for destructive ends, the authors of the 2006 report, 'Globalization, Biosecurity, and the Future of Life Sciences,' propose a 'web of protection' that bolsters the development of robust defenses without restricting the free flow of scientific information.

Writing in the September/October Bulletin, the authors argue that fixing a fractured public health system to be responsive to 'both natural and deliberate biological threats' is perhaps 'the most obvious and important' of the recommendations coming from the report produced by a committee of the National Research Council/Institute of Medicine (IOM)."