January 31, 2023, will mark the first high-level dialogue between the national security advisers of both India and the United States on the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET). Launched in May 2022, the iCET is spearheaded by India’s National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and the U.S. National Security Council (NSC).
While the exact list of mutual iCET priorities is not in the public domain yet, the Indian version of the iCET readout mentions biotechnology as one of its key priorities. On the other hand, biotechnology is not distinctly mentioned in the White House readout, though it is included in the list of critical and emerging technologies prepared by the National Science and Technology Council in consultation with the NSC and other federal agencies in February 2022.
Given the importance both countries attribute to biotechnology, there is no reason why it should not be an agenda item under the iCET. In case it does not feature in the mutual iCET priorities list, which might be clear after the official national security adviser–level dialogue, there is momentum between India and the U.S. on technology cooperation. The two countries should therefore think about leveraging this momentum to focus on biotechnology cooperation.
Although India and the United States have been collaborating with each other to enhance the scientific and commercial aspects of biotechnology innovation for a long time, the iCET can start a new thread of cooperation between the two countries—strengthening biosafety and biosecurity to minimize biological threats. But before concrete agenda items are discussed for the same under the iCET, it is important to develop a clear and common understanding of biosafety and biosecurity within and between India and the United States.
Biosafety is the set of systems put in place to prevent laboratory accidents or accidental release of pathogens into the environment. Biosecurity, on the other hand, is the set of tools and systems that are put in place to prevent deliberate misuse of hazardous pathogens.
Discussions on biosafety and biosecurity are important because rapid advancements in biotechnology have increased the capability to engineer potential pandemic-causing pathogens globally. Since the iCET is led by national security establishments of both sides, it is the right vehicle to drive stakeholder consultations between the security and the science community to brainstorm dual-use implications of biotechnology.
Based on preliminary research and stakeholder discussions, there are four areas that could potentially become concrete agenda items for collaboration between the two countries under the iCET.
Enhancing Awareness About Biosafety and Biosecurity
The iCET is an ideal initiative to convene a working group each in India and the United States composed of representatives from various government departments, the research and academic community, stakeholders from the private sector, including funder organizations, national security experts, health professionals, and members from think tanks to identify dual-use implications of key biotechnology advancements. This is because it is easier for the NSC and the NSCS to drive whole-of-government action on critical security-related issues and coordinate policies more clearly across different departments in both countries, in addition to involving stakeholders from outside of government.
The working groups can identify key technologies that pose biological threats, create awareness about these threats, recognize areas where the two countries can work together to develop joint training programs, and collaborate to develop standards to conduct biological research in a safe and secure manner.
Therefore, as the first step, the working groups should bridge the gap between the scientific and the security communities. This is important because, in most cases, there seems to be a disconnect between the two communities in both India and the United States about the understanding of biosafety and biosecurity. While scientists might not always understand or agree to the dual-use implications of their research, the security experts might not have enough understanding of recent advancements in biotechnology to govern them. In some cases, personnel working in laboratories might have a poor understanding of laboratory procedures, which can lead to the ignorant mishandling of pathogens, thereby contributing to accidental laboratory leaks. Therefore, to strengthen biosafety and biosecurity in both India and the United States, members of the working group in both countries should collaborate to develop guiding principles or training modules to generate awareness at a national level.
Once these stakeholder consultations are set up at a domestic level, the findings of these discussions should be shared between the two countries to ensure that both sides are on the same page regarding the understanding of biological risks and the strategies to tackle them.
Building Talent through Mutual Training Programs
Previous agreements to foster biotechnology cooperation between India and the United States have often focused on export control or intellectual property issues with respect to technology and product transfer. Analogous to traditional naval or military exercises, the NSC and the NSCS can bring the two aforementioned working groups to conduct joint simulation exercises, fellowship programs, informal discussions, or dialogues to better prepare for emerging biological threats.
As an example, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in the United States, in collaboration with the Regional Centre of Biotechnology, an autonomous institution under the Department of Biotechnology in the Indian Ministry of Science and Technology, has organized multiple iterations of track 2 dialogues on biosecurity. The two organizations have been hosting this dialogue since 2017 to expand the knowledge and understanding of biological threats between both countries, develop planning scenarios around biological threats of mutual concerns, create strategies for early outbreak detection, identify incentives for the advanced development of medical countermeasures, and formulate criteria for building and maintaining biological research laboratories.
Because of this long-standing partnership, it might be easier for these two organizations to sign a formal memorandum of understanding to create joint fellowship programs, hackathons, or training sessions to build capacities in both India and the United States to identify and deal with biological threats. While a lot of this engagement until now has been supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency within the U.S. Department of Defense, it might be important for both countries to identify funding opportunities from the government, the private sector (including venture capitalists), or philanthropy organizations to sustain this partnership.
Creating Institutional Capacity for Early Warning Systems
It is necessary to establish warning systems that can detect the early onset of an infection. To achieve this, the governments of both India and the United States should invest in comprehensive disease surveillance networks in their respective countries. These networks should not only scan for infectious diseases (plant-, human-, and animal-based) within their own countries but also look for infectious disease outbreaks in other countries, which could be a potential national security threat for India and/or the United States.
Since people involved in disease surveillance mechanisms might not have a clear understanding of a country’s national security concerns, the iCET can be the missing link that connects the country’s health priorities with its national security priorities. This is because the NSC and the NSCS have an adequate understanding of their national security priorities and can therefore collaborate with the scientific and academic community to evaluate information collated by existing medical or health intelligence organizations from a national security lens.
While such health intelligence mechanisms, to some degree, exist in both India and the United States, it is important that these processes continuously update their data and are interconnected to ensure early detection of disease outbreaks for a better coordinated response.
The National Center for Medical Intelligence in the United States is set up under the Department of Defense to “monitor, track, and assess full range of global health events that could negatively impact the health of U.S. military and civilian populations.” In addition to scanning the global spread of diseases, this organization assesses civilian and military applications of the recent advances in biotechnology and communicates this information to policymakers so that they can coordinate an early response to a possible biological threat.
Similarly, on the Indian side, the Central Bureau of Health Intelligence is set up under the Indian Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. This bureau collects, analyzes, and disseminates the data on health (for both communicable and non-communicable diseases) for evidence-based policy decisions, planning, and research activities within the country. This organization, however, does not conduct any global surveillance of disease outbreaks that might be a potential threat for India’s national security. Moreover, it is unclear if it collates information from the disease surveillance programs that record diseases in animals and plants. It is therefore imperative that the scope of this intelligence bureau be widened to include diseases across plants, animals, and humans both within and outside the country and then relay this information to policymakers for them to plan coordinated prevention and response strategies. In addition, it is important for this bureau to leverage the expertise of security professionals and the scientific community to evaluate the civilian and military applications of biotechnology and their impact on India’s national security.
Establishing Nodal Offices to Tackle Biological Threats
Given the recent experiences with the coronavirus pandemic, both India and the United States should prioritize preparedness and a measured response to biological threats as a key governmental priority.
Therefore, as a long-term goal, the iCET should encourage both countries to set up a nodal office each for preventing and managing biological threats. This is important because the officers in charge of coordinating the iCET, after finishing their term, might be given a different assignment. Therefore, to continue engagements on both sides, it is important to create a dedicated office, supported by a full-time staff, that can continuously look at the evolving nature of biological threats. The nodal offices could draw lessons from the working groups formulated under the iCET to facilitate early detection of biological threats to create preventive and response strategies for future disease outbreaks.
There already seems to be some movement along these lines in the United States. Soon after the launch of the iCET, it issued an executive order suggesting that the country should take “concrete steps to reduce biological risks associated with advances in biotechnology.” It also recommended that the secretary of health and human services, in coordination with the heads of other relevant agencies, will launch a “Biosafety and Biosecurity Innovation Initiative” that will be structured as an interagency working group, supported by full-time staff, to reduce biological risks associated with a growing bioeconomy. This expert working group could maybe, in the long run, transition into a full-time office that can regularly identify emerging vulnerabilities, develop best practices in coordination with stakeholders involved in different stages of biological research, and enhance community engagement.
On the other hand, India introduced a new Public Health (Prevention, Control and Management of epidemics, bio-terrorism and disasters) bill in 2017. While this bill was open for public comments in 2017, its current status is unknown. Therefore, at present, India has neither a comprehensive legislation nor a nodal authority that drives its response to biological threats. It might therefore be prudent for India to transition the working group established under the iCET into a dedicated office that looks after the preparedness for and response to biological threats.
Once the nodal offices are set up on both sides, they can potentially release a five-year plan for the coordination on early warning systems and the development of joint training exercises, thereby increasing transparency and strengthening collaboration between India and the United States to tackle biological threats.
Conclusion
Given the rapid pace of advancements in biotechnology and its implications on the economic and the security landscapes in both India and the United States, the iCET seems to be the right vehicle to initiate discussions around biological threats and deliberate strategies to address them. The initiative can start with the achievable targets of formulating a multistakeholder working group that can engage in joint training programs to enhance awareness about biosafety and biosecurity before tapping into longer-term goals like developing formal institutional capacities on both sides to ensure a timely exchange of information to establish early warning systems.
