Sandia Labs partners with nonprofit on initiative to end bioweapon threat

Sandia National Laboratories has joined forces with the Council on Strategic Risks to launch an initiative to make bioweapons obsolete.

The two organizations have released a report called “Making Bioweapons Obsolete: A Summary of Workshop Discussions. It makes recommendations for significantly reducing and ultimately eliminating biothreats. The report came out of a one-day workshop Sandia recently that brought together government, national laboratories, academia, industry, policy, and entrepreneur communities to address the challenges. It was the first workshop in a planned series.

Addressing the rising threats bioweapons present across the U.S. and around the world will require using strategy, technology advances, policy, and other tools, Anup Singh, director of Biological and Engineering Sciences at Sandia, said.

“This is an extremely interesting time in biotechnology with the revolutionary advances in genome editing, synthetic biology, and convergent technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics,” Singh said. “Academia and the private sector are driving a variety of biotechnology innovations, and it is imperative that we engage them in solving the problem together with the traditional national security partners.”

The report focuses on identifying solutions that can be employed by leaders around the world.

“We need a moonshot-level, inspirational goal regarding biological threats,” Andy Weber, senior fellow at the nonprofit Council on Strategic Risks, said. “When we convene top experts to explore the concept of making bioweapons obsolete, we are usually met with great enthusiasm and a feeling that the United States can really achieve this vision. Indeed, it is largely an expansion on the work the U.S. government has accomplished to date in addressing smallpox threats to America with an extensive vaccine stockpiling system and its development of vaccines for viruses such as Ebola.”

The report provides insights on critical technological trends, highlights the need for coordinated outreach and education to policymakers, and drives home the importance of U.S. leadership on this.

“With increased commitment, time, resources, and leadership, we can make further strides in meeting this bold target,” Andy McIlroy, associate laboratory director of Integrated Security Solutions at Sandia, said. “I hope that we can continue this discussion to create a united, national vision that meets the urgency of the moment.”

Future workshops will focus on man-made threats from weapons of mass destruction, as well as the risks posed by advances in technology.