Most peer reviewers will never encounter a manuscript that raises biosecurity or national security concerns. But for those working in the life sciences, in fields such as virology, synthetic biology, microbiology, or genomics, or in engineering and information technology, the possibility is real. Sometimes research that has been conducted for entirely legitimate scientific purposes carries genuine potential for harmful misuse. This kind of work has a name: dual-use research of concern, or DURC. The ethical questions it raises are different in kind from the more familiar issues of plagiarism or data fabrication, and they are not always obvious. This post is a practical introduction for reviewers who may encounter such work.
What is DURC?
The definition most widely used in international policy comes from the World Health Organization. It describes DURC as research that can be reasonably anticipated to provide knowledge, information, products, or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat to public health, agriculture, the environment, or national security.
In practice, this covers a specific set of research categories:
- Experiments that enhance the transmissibility, virulence, or host range of dangerous pathogens
- Research involving select agents and toxins subject to biosafety oversight
- Experiments that allow pathogens to evade immune responses or resist standard treatments
- The synthesis or reconstruction of dangerous pathogens from published genomic sequence data
The clearest example of how these concerns play out in practice remains the H5N1 influenza studies published in 2011–2012. Such studies demonstrated that the virus could be made transmissible between ferrets, raising serious questions about what that implied for airborne transmission in humans. The findings were legitimate and indicated that the science was credible and conducted for legitimate reasons. But they also prompted a prolonged international policy debate and a reckoning at the journal level: the American Society for Microbiology, among others, developed formal processes for reviewing manuscripts that might raise dual-use concerns. What the episode made undeniable was that good science and serious risk aren’t mutually exclusive, and that the decision to publish carries ethical weight of its own.
Peer review and dual-use research: What’s reviewers are expected to do
Peer reviewers matter here, but not as the last line of defence. Responsibility for catching dual-use concerns sits first with researchers and their institutions, then with funders, and finally, at the point of publication, with editors and reviewers together. Most journals working in high-risk life sciences fields now ask authors to flag potential concerns in their cover letters, giving editors and reviewers an early signal before they engage with the manuscript.
That said, the gap between expectation and reality is real. A 2012 survey of 127 chief editors of life science journals across 27 countries found that while nearly three-quarters felt that editors and reviewers have a responsibility to think about biosecurity risks, almost none had any formal training in the area. Further, not a single editor had ever rejected a submission on biosecurity grounds alone. That picture hasn’t changed much. Most reviewers are domain experts, not biosecurity specialists. What the system asks of you is narrower than it might sound: notice when something warrants a closer look, and flag it with the editor. You are not being asked to make the call yourself.
What you can realistically contribute as a peer reviewer
Here’s what you can meaningfully do as a peer reviewer:
- Notice if institutional review is missing. Research involving select agents, enhanced pathogens, or gain-of-function techniques should have gone through a formal review process at the authors’ institution before submission. If the manuscript doesn’t mention this, bring this to the editor’s attention, not as an accusation but as a gap in the documentation that warrants attention.
- Pay attention to the level of methodological detail. There’s a difference between a manuscript that demonstrates a finding and one that effectively provides a how-to guide. If the methods section reads like a reproducible recipe for enhancing a pathogen’s characteristics, with no discussion of biosafety or biosecurity measures, that distinction is worth questioning. The question is whether the level of detail serves legitimate scientific replication or goes meaningfully beyond it.
- Escalate, don’t adjudicate. If something feels off, share this it in your confidential comments to the editor and suggest that someone with biosecurity expertise take a look. Some publishers have dedicated advisory processes for exactly this; others can seek external input. Your role is to surface the concern and pass it to the right level, not to resolve it.
Beyond biology: dual-use concerns in other fields
The formal framework around dual-use research was built for life sciences, but the underlying question of whether the knowledge be used to cause serious harm arises in other fields too. Reviewers outside biology should be aware of the equivalent considerations in their areas:
- AI and autonomous systems: Research developing AI capabilities with clear applications in autonomous weapons, mass surveillance, or large-scale manipulation raises real dual-use questions, even without an established publication framework comparable to what exists in biosecurity. The absence of a formal process doesn’t mean the ethical question isn’t there.
- Chemistry and materials science: Research describing novel synthesis routes for dangerous substances or new methods for producing materials with obvious weapons applications can present serious concerns. The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Australia Group’s common control lists provide a practical references for what the international community considers high-risk in this space.
- Cybersecurity: Attack methods, newly discovered vulnerabilities, and exploitation techniques are published routinely in computer science. Responsible disclosure frameworks exist precisely because the dual-use nature of this work is well understood. If you peer review manuscripts in this area, you’re probably already familiar with these norms; the question for any given study is whether it appears to have followed them.
- Neuroscience and cognitive science: Research into methods for cognitive enhancement, incapacitation, or influence at scale, including some work on brain-computer interfaces, is an emerging area of concern. The norms here are less settled than in biosecurity, but the conversation is active, and reviewers should be aware of it.
Remember that the decision to publish is itself an ethical act
One of the more important shifts the debates around dual-use research brought about was this: publishing is not a neutral act. A manuscript that clears peer review enters the permanent, credentialed scientific record. It becomes accessible to researchers and to anyone else. For the vast majority of research, that’s exactly the point. For a small category of research, it requires genuine thought about what is being made available and to whom.
You don’t need specialist expertise to recognise when you’re in that territory. If you’re reading a manuscript and find yourself thinking this is genuinely interesting science, but I’m not sure it should be this easy to find, that instinct is worth taking seriously. Not by making the determination yourself but by raising it with the editor and asking for the right expertise to be brought in.
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