URoL:ASC: Next-Generation Biological Security and Bio-Hackathon

生物技术包括改善全世界数十亿人生活质量的各种技术。当代生物技术经常使用生命系统或生命材料——通常以工程细胞的形式——用于治疗或诊断疾病，制造生物燃料，或生产食品或膳食补充剂。这些可以被认为是生物资产。生物安全是一个过程，用于防止不必要的释放或捕获给定的生物资产，特别是如果该资产是潜在的致病性或对环境有害的。目前的生物安全方法主要依赖于限制物理访问：例如，生物资产被限制在高生物安全性的实验室中。目前的解决方案缺乏任何措施来防止一旦资产突破其受限制的环境，生物材料的不必要的扩散。这相当于保护你的数据，让你的手机没有密码保护，但把它放在一个锁着的抽屉里。只要手机处于锁定状态，你的数据就会受到保护。然而，任何拥有手机的人都可以使用它并访问你的数据。同样，在目前的生物安全措施下，任何人都可以使用生物资产，只要他们能进入。这项研究的目的是开发生物安全措施，这些措施固有地嵌入在生物技术资产中，就像你手机上的嵌入式密码认证一样。这种嵌入式安全性可以防止某人访问您的数据，即使他们拥有手机的物理所有权。这项研究的成功完成将导致生物安全和安全协议的范式转变。除了显著改善围堵和资产保护外，由此产生的技术将提高公众对使用工程生物系统的信心。本研究的目标是将生物安全从一个操作技术平台过渡到一个新的生物内在信息技术平台。为了实现这一目标，将需要生物工程的融合，这些生物工程将遵循一套规定的生命规则、网络安全原则和化学工程工作流程。基于内在信息技术的生物安全将能够为任何工程底盘单元或底盘单元联盟开发可扩展的主动保护措施和被动遏制策略。网络安全原则的使用将使生物工程师和相关利益相关者能够定义和建立下一代生物安全系统的标准和协议，此外还可以为生物安全系统的迭代改进进行分期和渗透测试。该行动计划将通过部署合成决策、合成记忆和互补的工程部件来设计、构建和测试生物安全的提升迭代，从而促进使用启发型研究。下一代生物安全影响的评估将通过包括安全专家、政策制定者、工业合作伙伴和国家组织在内的联合生产商联盟来实现。此外，这项研究计划将用于发展旨在促进融合研究的创新教育和培训活动。这项研究的社会影响将是多方面的，旨在减少与使用工程生物系统相关的焦虑，增加与国家安全有关的生物安全措施，并解决联邦机构改善控制措施以提高生物安全的普遍利益。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Biotechnologies include a variety of technologies that improve the quality of life for billions of people worldwide. Contemporary biotechnologies often use living systems or living materials – typically in the form of an engineered cell – used to treat or diagnose disease, manufacture biofuels, or produce foods or dietary supplements. These could be thought of as biological assets. Biological security is a process that is used to prevent the unwanted release or capture of a given biological asset, especially if this asset is potentially pathogenic or harmful to the environment. Current approaches to biological security rely primarily on restricting physical access: for instance, the biological assets are confined in high bio-security labs. The current solution lacks any measures to prevent the unwanted proliferation of the biological material once the asset has breached its restricted environment. This is the equivalent of protecting your data by having your cell phone unprotected by a password, but storing it in a locked drawer. Your data is protected, as long as the phone remains locked. However, anybody getting physical possession of the phone will be able to use it and access your data. Similarly, with the current biosecurity approach, anybody can use the biological asset if they get access to it. The objective of this research is to develop bio-security measures that are inherently embedded in the biotechnology asset, much like the embedded password authentication on your phone. This embedded security prevents someone from accessing your data even if they have physical possession of the phone. The successful completion of this research will result in a paradigm shift in biological security and security protocols. In addition to dramatically improving containment and asset protection, the resulting technologies will increase public confidence in the use of engineered biological systems. The objective of this research is to transition biological security from an operational technology platform to a novel biologically intrinsic informational technology platform. To accomplish this will require the convergence of biological engineering informed by a prescribed set of rules of life, cybersecurity principles, and chemical engineering workflows. Biosecurity predicated on intrinsic informational technology will enable the development of scalable active protection measures and passive containment strategies for any engineered chassis cell or consortium of chassis cells. The use of cybersecurity principles will enable biological engineers and related stakeholders to define and establish the standards and protocols for next-generation biosecurity systems, in addition to staging and conducting penetration tests for the iterative improvement of biological security systems. This plan of action will facilitate use-inspired research via deploying synthetic-decision making and synthetic memory and complementary engineered parts to design, build, and test ascending iterations of biosecurity. Assessment of the impact of next-generation biosecurity will be achieved via a consortium of co-producers that include security specialists, policy makers, industrial partners, and national organizations. In addition, this research program will be used to develop innovative education and training activities aimed at fostering convergent research. The societal impact of this research will be many-fold and is aimed at reducing the anxiety associated with the use of engineer biological systems, increased biosecurity measures that are of interest to national security, and addressing a general interest in improving containment measures from federal institutions to improve biosafety.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.