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The Cambridge Working Group is a group of medical research scientists and bioethics experts concerned with the biosafety risks of creating novel potential pandemic pathogens for research purposes. The group has engaged in public advocacy, influencing the US Government's decision in Dec 2015 to issue a moratorium on research creating novel potential pandemic pathogens. In December 2017, the three-year moratorium expired.

The group was formed by Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch at a meeting held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, following a "trifecta" of biosecurity incidents involving the CDC, including the accidental exposure of viable anthrax to personnel at CDC's Roybal Campus, the discovery of six vials containing viable smallpox from the 1950s mislabeled as Variola at the FDA's White Oak campus, and the accidental shipping of H9N2 vials contaminated with H5N1 from the CDC lab to a USDA lab. On July 14, 2014, the group published a Consensus Statement with 18 original signatories and founding members. Within the first two months of publishing the Consensus Statement, 50 more Charter Members signed, and has since been signed by over 200 scientists.

The group advocates for devising safer research methods that would meet the same research objectives.

Background

Scientists have performed "gain of function" studies as an experimentation tool for decades, such as "passaging" a virus in a host that it wouldn't usually infect in order generate attenuated strains for use in vaccines. This was done for the Polio virus.

The Cambridge Working Group is not concerned so much with "gain of function" studies in the general, but of applying the tool to creating variants with increased transmissibility and virulence among mammals that could also affect humans in the case of a deliberate or accidental lab release.

Dr Arturo Casadevall founding editor-in-chief of the mBio, a scientific journal published by the American Society for Microbiology and Michael Imperiale, another editor of the journal, both of who signed the Consensus Statement, said gain of function experiments can yield important information, particularly about flu viruses, but that the research poses risks. As an example, they cited the strong circumstantial evidence indicating that H1N1 flu subtype in 1977 resulted from a lab accident. Other lapses they noted involved anthrax and H5N1 from CDC labs, and infections of lab workers with Yersinia pestis and Brucella species.

In an interview with the New York Times, Richard H. Ebright, a molecular biologist and laboratory director at Rutgers University, who also signed the Consensus Statement said he had “no confidence” in the safety of the many labs that have sprung up since 2001, citing the need for increased oversight over their management.

Opposing position

Shortly after the Cambridge Working Group released its position statement, Scientists for Science was formed by 37 signatories taking an opposing position. The group's founder, Paul Duprex, said that studies on risky germs are already subject to extensive regulations saying that the it would be better to focus more on lab safetey, not limiting the types of experiments that can be done. Columbia University virologist Ian Lipkin, who signed both statements, said "there has to be a coming together of what should be done".

Members

Founding members

The original founding members from 2014 are:

1. Amir Attaran of the University of Ottawa
2. Barry Bloom of Harvard University
3. Arturo Casadevall of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine
4. Richard H. Ebright or Rutgers University
5. Nicholas Evans of the University of Pennsylvania
6. David Fisman of the University of Toronto
7. Alison Galvani of Yale School of Public Health
8. Peter Hale of the Foundation for Vaccine Research
9. Edward Hammondo of Third World Network
10. Michael Imperiale of the University of Michigan
11. Thomas Inglesby of the UPMC Center for Health Security
12. Marc Lipsitch, Harvard School of Public Health
13. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota/CIDRAP
14. David Relman of Stanford University
15. Richard Roberts (Nobel Laureate '93) of New England Biolabs
16. Marcel Salathé of the Pennsylvania State University
17. Lone Simonsen of the George Washington University
18. Silja Vöneky of the University of Freiburg Institute of Public Law

Additional members

Some additional members include:

• John Brownstein from Harvard Medical School
• Neil M. Ferguson of Imperial College
• W. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University
• Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh, UK
• Steven Salzberg of Johns Hopkins University
• Klaus Stöhr, a former WHO official who pressed for efforts pandemics preparedness

See also

• List of accidents and incidents involving laboratory biosecurity

References

1. https://www.lemonde.fr/sciences/article/2014/10/20/la-maison-blanche-fait-volte-face-sur-les-frankenvirus_4509133_1650684.html
2. https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/saude/cientistas-pedem-limite-criacao-de-virus-mortais-em-laboratorio-13281731
3. <https://thebulletin.org/2014/08/making-viruses-in-the-lab-deadlier-and-more-able-to-spread-an-accident-waiting-to-happen/
4. "Scientists call for limit on creating dangerous pathogens". Science | AAAS. July 15, 2014.
5. Lipsitch, Marc; Inglesby, Thomas V. (December 12, 2014). "Moratorium on Research Intended To Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens". mBio. 5 (6). doi:10.1128/mBio.02366-14. PMC 4271556. PMID 25505122 – via PubMed Central.
6. "U.S. halts funding for new risky virus studies, calls for voluntary moratorium". Science | AAAS. October 17, 2014.
7. "Could Coronavirus Have Escaped from a Lab? | bostonmagazine.com".
8. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html
9. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2019/03/04/scientists-restart-research-on-creating-deadly-bird-flu-with-nihs-blessing/?sh=2e44c1235edd
10. Begley,STAT, Sharon. "U.S. Lifts Moratorium on Funding Controversial, High-Risk Virus Research". Scientific American.
11. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bio-unsafety-level-3-could-the-next-lab-accident-result-in-a-pandemic/
12. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/18/anthrax-bird-flu-dangers-lax-security-disease-control-labs
13. https://www.startribune.com/summit-is-needed-on-troubling-research/267725831/
14. https://www.wired.com/2014/07/cdc-accidents-hearing/
15. https://www.nature.com/news/safety-lapses-in-us-government-labs-spark-debate-1.15570
16. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article/authors?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001646
17. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2014/08/experts-urge-gain-function-sides-seek-common-ground
18. https://www.vox.com/2014/7/21/5913267/the-cdc-left-anthrax-vials-in-a-fridge-heres-why-that-could-be-good/in/5686836
19. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/science/pathogen-mishaps-rise-as-labs-proliferate-with-scant-regulation.html
20. Edelmann, Achim; Moody, James; Light, Ryan (May 24, 2017). "Disparate foundations of scientists' policy positions on contentious biomedical research". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.1613580114. ISSN 0027-8424. PMID 28559310.
21. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/08/13/339854400/biologists-choose-sides-in-safety-debate-over-lab-made-pathogens/
22. https://www.sciencemagazinedigital.org/sciencemagazine/05_september_2014?folio=1112&pg=20#pg20
23. Cambridge Working Group Consensus Statement on the Creation of Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs)

External links

• The Cambridge Working Group Consensus Statement on the Creation of Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs)

• Genetic engineering
• Bioethics
• Safety
• Biological hazards
• Open letters
• Think tanks based in the United States
• Science and technology think tanks