Weapons

When neuroscience leads to neuroweapons

In general, the universal prohibition on biological weapons is widely supported, and there is healthy concern over how dual-use technologies—those with both beneficial and dangerous applications—might threaten it. The upcoming Eighth Review Conference of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), in November will tackle this concern, as have individual countries. The German Ethics Council issued a 2014 report recommending legal regulation of worrisome dual-use biological research, and in 2016, the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity published recommendations on the risks and benefits of so-called “gain of function” research, which aims to identify how pathogens evolve by forcing genetic changes that sometimes make them more dangerous.