Heitman to help plan ‘dual-use’ education meetings
Elizabeth Heitman, Ph.D.
“Dual use” typically refers to research with biological agents and methods that offers benefit to human health but which also has the potential to create serious safety hazards, or to be used as weapons.
The committee members, selected by the National Research Council, will serve the Board on Life Sciences in developing international meetings in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), funded by the U.S. Department of State. The meetings are to be attended by life sciences educators over the course of the next two years.
“The purpose will be building collegial relations with and among scientists from all over the region, so it is partly a diplomatic effort,” Heitman said. “But it is also in order for us to come together and address concerns about the potential biosecurity threats, not just to the industrialized world but to people everywhere.”
Heitman, who is a faculty member in the Vanderbilt Center for Biomedical Ethics and Society, was selected for her expertise in ethics education in the biological sciences, while other members of the committee serve as specialists in laboratory sciences and lab security, among other things. Vanderbilt is considered a leader in the delicate and conscientious handling of biological research that has the power both to educate and inform health services, but also to be used by those with terroristic goals.
The committee met for the first time May 30 to June 1. The location of the meeting was to have been the Library of Alexandria in Alexandria, Egypt, but because of the current political unrest, it has been moved to the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste, Italy. Heitman and fellow committee members will plan the first Faculty Development Workshop, creating educational materials applicable to the MENA region's research and system of higher education.