Prof. Weiwen Zhang spoke in the International Forum hosted by Johns Hopkins University-天津大学生物安全战略研究中心

The global forum on “the Important Impact of Scientific Progress on the UN Convention on the Prohibition of Biological Weapons”, hosted by Johns Hopkins University, was held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland on December 3^rd, 2018. Nearly 60 policy experts and new dual-use biotechnology experts from the United States, Britain, Brazil, Pakistan, Malaysia and other countries participated in the forum. The conference included four main topics: "Biological Frontiers: Current Capacity Status and Its Impact on the Biological Weapons Convention", "Current and Historical Approaches to Solving Scientific and Technological Progress and Its Impact on the Biological Weapons Convention", "Capacity Building of Frontier Biology and Its Role in Preventing Biological Weapons Proliferation" and "How to use frontier biotechnology to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention of the United Nations".
Prof. Weiwen Zhang, director of Center for Biosafety Research and Strategy of Tianjin University, was invited to attend and give a speech as the only expert from China. In his report, Prof. Zhang talked about the development of new dual-use technology represented by synthetic biology and genome editing, and also pointed out the potential concerns that the new dual-use technology may cause to the human society.