Law Enforcement and Biological Sciences: Outreach Needing to Happen

The Scientist has a long, detailed article outlining the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s relationship with the biological sciences community.  Unfortunately, recent cases such as those of Thomas Butler and Steve Kurtz have established a more adversarial relationship between the FBI and the biological sciences than would be beneficial – for both sides.  It would be nice if the FBI would have more information available on its website for their Biological Sciences Outreach program, but I’ve been unable to find it.

I think some history could help understand why there are challenges in this area, where the nuclear science/weapons research areas didn’t quite have the combination of ambivalence and distrust that come through in the Scientist piece.  While there has been high-security work involving biological weapons for a long time, that work has been in a relatively small section of the field.  Biological research has taken advantage of advances in computing and other technologies that have made it cheaper and easier to manufacture materials.  It has also expanded the number of transformative techniques at its disposal (synthetic biology being the latest) and the number of researchers who could do something that could be used for ill purposes.

The similar historical arc in nuclear science and research has a significant difference – the involvement of government.  Nuclear activities were regulated pretty early in the history of the field.  Governments controlled the field, if not generated it with their funding.  They knew what was going on in a more…intimate fashion than I think they have in biological research.  As a result, they are pretty new to the field, and don’t understand what is scientifically plausible in the same way that they did in the infancy of nuclear development.  As they develop more expertise, like that demonstrated by Ed You in the article, perhaps this will change.