Group on Biosecurity and Bioterrorism
Through a Decree of the Prime Minister’s Office and within the CNBBSV (the Italian national Committee for Biosecurity, Biotechnologies and Life Sciences), a Working Group called “Working group on Biosecurity and Bioterrorism” is created.
This Group pursued the following aims:
- to develop adequate codes of conduct in order to respect the so-called “dual-use”;
- to identify and catalogue the main potential pathogens, and to carry out a census of their localization within the national territory;
- to establish needs, structures and localization of a DNA-database of B-agents, which shall contain all available genetic information;
- to find research institutes, which can provide scientific basis to develop methods and to identify and standardize judicially these agents;
- to determine the structure and standards of a database that can provide information about who has access on these pathogens and how they take possession of them;
- to define standards for the establishment of national archives;
- to develop standards to establish the identification of pathogens and to validate protocols and analytic methods for their determination, in order to allow quick lead times;
- to develop training courses for experts and working tools for public information;
- to coordinate international relations with similar initiatives not solely in Europe.
This Group consisted of experts in both scientific and institutional topics, of national and world renown.
