Abstract: The last few decades have witnessed enormous progress in life sciences which has contributed significantly to health, agriculture and economy. In the process, the barriers to knowledge, expertise and resources to conduct biological research have come down. However, several potential risks have emerged alongside the huge benefits of these developments. Here, the risks include the potential deliberate biological threats including development, production and use of biological weapons, a class of the weapons of mass destruction. The measures to prevent such deliberate biological threats come under the purview of biological security. The nature and scope of biological risks are rapidly evolving due to advancements in synthetic biology, genome editing and artificial intelligence. This seminar will discuss how such science and technology advancements are changing the biological security landscape. Further, it will highlight the existing national and multilateral policy and regulatory frameworks, their effectiveness and potential way forwards. Lastly, it will provide a brief overview of how different stakeholders can effectively contribute for strengthening biological security.
About the speaker: Dr. Suryesh Kumar Namdeo is a Senior Research Analyst at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and a Fellow of the Asia Centre for Health Security, National University of Singapore. He is also a member of the Indian National Young Academy of Science (INYAS). He leads several policy research projects on technology security and science diplomacy. Previously, he served as the science and technology consultant for the Biological Weapons Convention at the United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs in Geneva. Here, his responsibilities included facilitating science and technology advice to diplomats and international civil servants. He has co-authored the UN ‘Seoul Youth Declaration for Disarmament and Non-proliferation’ and the UN ‘Youth Declaration for Biosecurity.’ Suryesh has recently served as the co-chair of the expert committee of a multinational project of the US National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) titled ‘Biological Threats in the Age of Bioeconomy’. He is a member of the advisory board of the International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS), an international organisation focused on addressing biological threats. He is also a member of the AIxBio Global Forum, an initiative by the US-based Nuclear Threat Initiative to develop guardrails for emerging threats at the interface of artificial intelligence and biotechnology. He previously served as programme officer for the Science, Technology and Innovation Policy Fellowship Programme of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India, and held the role of Director of Outreach and Engagement for the Journal of Science Policy and Governance (JSPG). He holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany.