The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
Topics at Biotechnology and Biosecurity: the pages in this section are listed below, each with its own scope and status.
The Biotechnology and Biosecurity topics are the eight subject dossiers of its field, among them synthetic biology, biomanufacturing, and diagnostics and therapeutics. Each dossier sets out how the risk develops, what is measured and in which units, the public sources and their licences, the methods, who decides and the limits of the evidence.
GCRI is a research, development and policy institution. It is not a regulator, and it does not certify, license or approve; its findings carry their methods and uncertainty.
The topics on this platform are framed for regulators, biosafety professionals and preparedness planners, at capacity and oversight level only. They concern how institutions review research with misuse potential, how laboratory and countermeasure capacity is assessed, and how human, animal and plant health preparedness connect. A reader looks for governance evidence; no topic gives technical biological detail. Methods come from epidemiology and process safety.
The topics on this platform are framed at capacity and oversight level.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Biosafety | Measures that assess and manage risks to health and the environment from living modified organisms, governed internationally by the Cartagena Protocol. |
| Biosecurity | Measures that prevent the loss, theft, misuse or deliberate release of pathogens and toxins. |
| Dual-use research of concern | Life sciences research that could be directly misapplied to threaten health, agriculture, the environment or security. |
| One Health | An integrated approach that aims to balance and optimise the health of people, animals and ecosystems, as the Quadripartite organizations define it. |
| Living modified organism | An organism with a novel combination of genetic material obtained through modern biotechnology, as the Cartagena Protocol defines it. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
Design-build-test biology and safeguards.
TopicIndustrial biology and production systems.
TopicHealth innovation and evaluation.
TopicFood system applications and environmental effects.
TopicAccidental, natural and deliberate biological risks.
TopicResearch environment controls and governance.
TopicCross-species and environmental factors.
TopicResponsible research and escalation.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.