See what we’re reading this week at Global Biodefense on topics including a call to audit the WHO pandemic flu framework, use of chemical weapons in Syria, and a large trial of Ebola vaccine strategies.
POLICY, PRACTICES & POLITICS
- How DARPA is leading the debate on biosecurity and biosafety with genome editors (CW)
- Advisory group supports industry demand for audit of WHO pandemic flu framework (IPW)
- How should genome editing applications be assessed and regulated? (ReliaWire)
- Coalition letter regarding FY 2017 appropriations (ASM)
BIOPREPAREDNESS
- The big one is coming, and it’s going to be a flu pandemic (CNN)
- The realities of global health security (Contagion Live)
- Fogarty protects Americans by building pandemic response capacity (NIH)
- Threat of new epidemic of infectious disease or bioterrorist act never far away (Stuff)
- Pandemic response a cycle of ‘panic and neglect,’ says World Bank president (Devex)
- How a novel disease threat brought EMS and public health together (EMS World)
- Pandemic research project presents recommendations to European Commission (PW)
- Podcast: Flu pandemic: how prepared are we? (Univ of Nottingham)
CHEMICAL WEAPONS
- The grim logic behind Syria’s chemical weapons attack (NY Times)
- Syria may have used military-grade nerve agent in alleged attack (USA Today)
SELECT AGENTS
- Large trial launches of different Ebola vaccine strategies (CIDRAP)
- Ebola: The great ape gamble (Nature)
- A history of sarin as a weapon (The Atlantic)
- Bacteriophage T4 as a nanoparticle platform: construction of anthrax vaccine (Springer)
OUTBREAK NEWS & THREAT SURVEILLANCE
- What UPMC is doing to guard against a deadly ‘superbug’ (Trib Live)
- Coronavirus HKU1 infections in Cleveland (Clinicians’ Biosecurity News)
- Ten Saudi MERS cases linked to hospital outbreak (CIDRAP)
RESEARCH & TECH
- Battlefield pharma: portable on-demand manufacturing (Medicine Maker)
- New technology could offer cheaper, faster food testing (MIT News)
- Infectious disease transmission in fish, mammals has implications for humans (Phys.org)
SPECIAL INTEREST
- Center for Health Security Emerging Leaders take on the Eight Ball (Pandora Report)
- Smallpox vaccination: an early start of modern medicine in America (T&F)
- The Silicon Valley of biodefense (Kansas State University)
