Risky life-science projects need global governance. Unfortunately, current standards and practices are not up to the task.
Security precautions, thoughtful facilities design, careful training and safe lab practices help keep pathogens isolated.
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The microbiologist who directs the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories at Boston University explains all the biosafety precautions in place that help him feel safer in the lab than out.
A virologist stands between rows of cages for laboratory animals in the new high security laboratory (biosafety level 4) at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine in Hamburg, Germany.
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A large proportion of scientific research on coronaviruses is carried out in countries with no oversight of experiments designed to make pathogens more deadly.
Microbes are everywhere – and they aren’t all friendly.
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Scientists get up close and personal with deadly pathogens to give doctors the tools they need to treat people sickened by germs. The key is keeping the researchers – and everyone around them – safe.
A security guard leads reporters away from the Wuhan Institute of Virology after a WHO team arrived for a field visit in Wuhan, Hubei province of China, Feb. 3, 2021. The team came to no conclusions about the origins of the pandemic.
(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Gain-of-function studies make a natural virus more dangerous or transmissible to humans. Could the Wuhan Institute of Virology be the source of SARS-CoV-2?
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education and Professor of Physiological Sciences in the College of Veterinary Medicine, Oklahoma State University