Biophysical Society Bulletin | July-August 2024

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Senate Calls for Emergency R&D Investment in AI A bipartisan quartet of senators led by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a blueprint for artificial intelligence (AI) policy that proposes Congress use “emergency” appropriations to ramp up federal non-defense spending on AI research and development (R&D) to at least $32 billion per year. This matches the level proposed in 2021 by the National Security Commis sion on AI, which estimated that federal agencies spent about $1 billion on such R&D in fiscal year 2020 and proposed that Congress double that figure each year over five years. Beyond funding a cross-government AI R&D initiative, the blueprint proposes that some of the money go to broader priorities, such as implementing the CHIPS and Science Act and addressing the large backlog of infrastructure maintenance at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

OSTP Issues New Rules for Gain-of-Function Research

OSTP is also replacing a seven-year-old policy for GOF studies that modify dangerous agents such as H5N1 avian influenza in ways that could make them riskier to people. That policy required such studies of “potential pandemic pathogens,” also known as PPPs, to undergo a high-level federal review, although only three proposals have been subjected to that scrutiny so far. Under the new rules for GOF studies, now called Category 2 research, even certain experiments with less lethal agents such as seasonal flu could fall under the policy. Around the World Report Suggests France Create NIH-like Agency for Research In May, a report commissioned by the French government on how to address the country’s system for managing and fund ing biomedical science was released. At the top of the list of recommendations is a proposal to create a national agency to oversee all biomedical research, similar to the United States' National Institutes of Health (NIH). Over the past two decades, France has fallen behind in inter national rankings for biomedical research. The solution, ac cording to the report, is to transform France’s major biomedi cal research and human health organization, INSERM, into an

In early May, the White House announced new rules for fed eral oversight of gain-of-function (GOF) studies on pathogens that could lead to another pandemic. The overhaul of rules also includes a broader category of federally funded research on dangerous pathogens that is considered “dual use,” be cause the results could be used as bioweapons. The rules released by the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) are narrower than a proposal floated last year that many scientists feared would complicate studies on low-risk pathogens such as cold viruses and herpesviruses. The new policy, which will take effect in May 2025, replaces decade-old rules governing “dual-use research of concern” (DURC) crafted in the wake of the 2001 anthrax attacks. The DURC rules require additional oversight of seven types of ex periments that involve 15 high-risk human and animal viruses and bacteria from a longer U.S. government list of dangerous human, animal, and plant pathogens and toxins known as select agents. Under the new policy, the rules for DURC—now dubbed Category 1 research—will expand to all 68 select agents, as well as about two dozen additional high-risk pathogens, such as West Nile Virus, usually studied in laboratories with the highest biocontainment measures. It also expands the list of regulated experiments from seven to nine.

July/August 2024

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