The Biorisk Management Casebook: Insights into contemporary practices

The Biorisk Management Casebook describes an initial effort by researchers and policy experts at Stanford University, Harvard University, and NTI | bio to serve the goal of VIRS by compiling and summarizing case studies and interviews with organizations with biorisk management practices. By providing concrete details of real practice, VIRS uniquely complements other initiatives that have developed high-level recommendations for biorisk management. The approach adopted in VIRS is distinct from, and complementary to, related efforts because (i) it is grounded in original qualitative research and (ii) it serves as a pilot for using case studies as mechanisms for knowledge sharing. VIRS begins from the assumption that the details are important, both as a source of information for others to learn from and as a normative signal that sharing is safe and valuable.

This report synthesizes the observations from our research, expert consultations, interviews, and case studies and organizes them into four sections:

Key Challenges & Opportunities: Cross-cutting observations on biorisk management gathered through VIRS that apply broadly to organizations across the life science research ecosystem and to the ecosystem itself.

Detailed Findings: Summarized observations of biorisk management practices collected from our case studies and interviews, describing (i) the conditions organizations describe as important for establishing their practices, (ii) the practices they use, and (iii) the mechanisms they may use when coordinating their efforts with other stakeholders.

Suggested Initiatives: Descriptions of options for future initiatives to further improve biorisk management and information sharing.

Additional resources and details about the methods used in this report