Development and assessment of cutting-edge biotechnologies

• Published in: Journal of biosafety and biosecurity 2024-03, Vol.6 (1), p.51-63
• Main Authors: Hu, Xiaofeng, Xu, Baichuan, Chen, Mingliang, Li, Kexin, Xiao, Yang, Liang, Shengnan, Zhang, Chuanfu, Ma, Hui, Song, Hongbin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Biotechnology; Gene drives; Gene editing; Synthetic biology
• ISSN: 2588-9338; 2588-9338
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jobb.2024.03.001

The emergence of advanced biotechnologies has intensified in recent years. The rapid development of these biotechnologies has had a wide and profound impact globally, with the majority on the frontier of biosecurity technologies. The global biosecurity situation is currently highly challenging, with the characteristics of internationalization, extremely serious harm, and complex development. The misuse and abuse of biotechnologies are common, which thereby endanger biosecurity. The international community and governments have attached great importance to cutting-edge biotechnologies and are implementing laws and regulations to control and prevent biosecurity-related influences. By tracking the frontier progress of the new technologies generated from gene editing, gene drives, synthetic biology, and related cross-disciplines as applied in the biosecurity field, we analyzed the development trends in biotechnologies and their potential influence. On the one hand, this paper proposes that there is an urgent need for global cooperation to formulate management, control strategies, and measures for cutting-edge technologies in biosecurity to jointly promote their sound development. On the other hand, the international community should jointly shoulder the responsibility for safeguarding biosecurity and restrict the biotechnologies to rational applications within legal and ethical frameworks. This paper aims to provide a reference for the prevention of misuse and abuse of biotechnologies and support global cooperation in biosecurity governance.