Biosecurity

Synthetic Biology’s Defence Dollars: Signals and Perceptions

Synthetic biology is swimming in defense dollars. The most recent figures available on US trends in synthetic biology research funding indicate that two thirds of the $200 million invested in 2014 came from the Department of Defense or its research agency DARPA. While many scientists see military money as just another source of funding on par with NIH or NSF funding—after all, the majority of the funds are for basic science without security classification and publication restrictions—there are good reasons not to brush it off. One of these is the perception of the field to outsiders.