The International Biosecurity and Prevention Forum (IBPF) program is a US government effort to improve global biosecurity through international collaboration.¹ A goal of the IBPF program is to hold in-person events to allow individuals working in research, industry, health, policy, and law enforcement to share and improve biosecurity best practices. To further this goal, IBPF collaborated with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) to organize and conduct the Symposium on Export Control of Emerging Biotechnologies.²

The symposium was held during October 18–20, 2016, in Monterey, California. A total of sixty participants from fifteen countries attended the symposium.³...

The symposium’s agenda was designed to accomplish the following tasks:

Provide symposium participants with relevant background information.

Allow participants to discuss topics in small groups.

Allow all participants to review and discuss findings from individual groups for further questions and input.

Most of the symposium’s first day and parts of the symposium’s second and third days were dedicated to providing participants with relevant background information. The background information was provided via 20–45 minute presentations and panel discussions followed by question and answer sessions. The topics for these presentations and panels included discussions of current emerging biotechnologies, reviews of existing...

During the symposium, participants identified and assessed seventeen biotechnologies and associated services of potential concern. The findings are summarized in Table 2 and described further in Section 3.1 to Section 3.17 (below). Importantly, reported findings are based on the symposium team’s interpretation of points raised by participants.

In Table 2, the first column names biotechnologies and services identified and assessed by symposium participants. The second column indicates whether participants felt that it was worth further assessing the feasibility and desirability of export controls and/or soft approaches for each item. In this column, “Yes” indicates the item appeared to warrant further...

In addition to the technology-specific findings reported above, participants elaborated six general recommendations:

Grant proposals for life sciences research projects should include a category on how researchers plan to minimize the dual-use risk posed by their proposed research. Doing so would reward researchers who already address dual-use security issues and provide a financial incentive structure in support of law enforcement education and outreach efforts. Some participants further suggested that research institutions should be requested to provide necessary dual-use risk assessment training as a condition of funding. Precedent for such practice exists. Certain government grants and certain journals already require scientists...

Participants highlighted some additional trends regarding the future of controls on emerging biotechnologies that are worth consideration. These are as follows:

Compared to items currently controlled for BW-related interdiction reasons, most items considered at the symposium were highly sophisticated. Expertise within governments to ensure good governance is steadily increasing.

Several participants noted that the clarity of an export control list was critical to facilitate company compliance, minimize the risk of unintended capture, and enable law enforcement action. A related point made by participants was that relying on sweeping export control clauses or relying on “catch-all” controls when formulating traditional export...