Emerging Life Sciences and Possible Threats to International Security.

At the intersection of emerging technologies and international affairs, one of the most provocative areas is the applications of advanced genetic engineering. The COVID-19 global pandemic and uncertainty about the origin of the causative virus illustrates both immediacy and the potential geopolitical implications of such technologies. These new gene editing techniques include one which has garnered a great deal of attention, the Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) systems, as well as other, less well-known ones. CRISPR is not the first type of gene editing technology, but it is the most well-known within national and international security debates. Such advancements now allow for easier and more tunable manipulation of the genetic code of life with implications for governance of science and technology and with international security significance in the context of proliferation, deterrence, and unconventional weapons. Biosecurity and other emerging technologies require new models, not simple extrapolations of Cold War or more recent deterrence (or nonproliferation) paradigms.

How COVID-19 is reshaping U.S. national security policy.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States is actively reshaping parts of its national security enterprise. This article explores the underlying politics, with a specific interest in the context of biosecurity, biodefense, and bioterrorism strategy, programs, and response, as the United States responds to the most significant outbreak of an emerging infectious disease in over a century. How the implicit or tacit failure to recognize the political will and political decision-making connected to warfare and conflict for biological weapons programs in these trends is explored. Securitization of public health has been a focus of the literature over the past half century. This recent trend may represent something of an inverse: an attempt to treat national security interests as public health problems. A hypothesis is that the most significant underrecognized problem associated with COVID-19 is disinformation and the weakening of confidence in institutions, including governments, and how adversaries may exploit that blind spot.

Shaping the future US bioeconomy through safety, security, sustainability, and social responsibility.

Biomanufacturing practitioners and researchers describe the norms that should govern the growing, global field, to include safety, security, sustainability, and social responsibility. These '4S Principles' should be broadly adopted so that the future of the field may provide the greatest benefits to society.

Neurotechnology and international security: Predicting commercial and military adoption of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) in the United States and China.

In the past decade, international actors have launched "brain projects" or "brain initiatives." One of the emerging technologies enabled by these publicly funded programs is brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), which are devices that allow communication between the brain and external devices like a prosthetic arm or a keyboard. BCIs are poised to have significant impacts on public health, society, and national security. This research presents the first analytical framework that attempts to predict the dissemination of neurotechnologies to both the commercial and military sectors in the United States and China. While China started its project later with less funding, we find that it has other advantages that make earlier adoption more likely. We also articulate national security risks implicit in later adoption, including the inability to set international ethical and legal norms for BCI use, especially in wartime operating environments, and data privacy risks for citizens who use technology developed by foreign actors.

Security implications and governance of cognitive neuroscience.

In recent years, significant efforts have been made toward elucidating the potential of the human brain. Spanning fields as disparate as psychology, biomedicine, computer science, mathematics, electrical engineering, and chemistry, research venturing into the growing domains of cognitive neuroscience and brain research has become fundamentally interdisciplinary. Among the most interesting and consequential applications to international security are the military and defense community's interests in the potential of cognitive neuroscience findings and technologies. In the United States, multiple governmental agencies are actively pursuing such endeavors, including the Department of Defense, which has invested over $3 billion in the last decade to conduct research on defense-related innovations. This study explores governance and security issues surrounding cognitive neuroscience research with regard to potential security-related applications and reports scientists' views on the role of researchers in these areas through a survey of over 200 active cognitive neuroscientists.

Microporous porphyrin solids.

Metalloporphyrins are exceedingly useful building blocks for the design and synthesis of molecularly based solids. The use of hydrogen bonding or metal ion coordination provides a wide range of framework solids. Using various polyfunctionalized porphyrins, we have created porous solids that are thermally robust and that retain their internal porosity upon loss of solvates. Their pore dimensions are comparable to zeolites, and they show shape and size selectivity in sorption of guest molecules and in epoxidation of alkenes.

A functional zeolite analogue assembled from metalloporphyrins.

The assembly of molecular building blocks with metal ions generating microporous network solids has been the focus of intense activity. Because of their potential applications associated with channels and cavities, such materials have been examined for size- and shape-selective catalysis, separations, sensors, molecular recognition and nanoscale reactors. Within this context, assemblies of robust and chemically versatile porphyrin and metalloporphyrin building blocks remain rare. Supramolecular architectures of porphyrin solids based on weak van der Waals interactions, hydrogen bonding and metal-ligand coordination networks have been reported. Although there are frequent allusions to zeolite-like microporosity from crystallography and loss of initial guest solvent molecules, evidence of functional microporous behaviour is scarce. We have demonstrated repeatable sorption-desorption with high selectivity on the basis of size, shape and functional group of the sorbate by a microporous metalloporphyrin solid in analogy to zeolites.