On March 29, 2012, the US Government released the United States Government Policy for Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Research of Concern (“March 2012 DURC Policy”) This action established a U.S. Government policy for DURC as applied to a well-defined subset of life sciences research that involves 15 agents and toxins and seven categories of experiments and established regular review by Federal agencies of U.S. Government-funded or conducted research with certain high-consequence pathogens and toxins for its potential to be dual use research of concern.
The intent of this Policy is to: (a) mitigate risks where appropriate, and (b) collect information needed to inform the development of an updated policy, as needed, for the oversight of DURC. The fundamental aim of this oversight is to preserve the benefits of life sciences research while minimizing the risk of misuse of the knowledge, information, products, or technologies provided by such research.
