IAP and the Biosecurity Working Group

Professor Ryszard Slomski from the Polish Academy of Sciences represented IAP at the Meeting of Experts (MXP) of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) from 4-6 August 2014 in Geneva, Switzerland. In conjunction with the Meeting of Experts, the IAP Biosecurity Working Group organized a “Workshop on Advances in Understanding Pathogenicity” on 3 August 2014 in the Tiffany Hotel, Geneva. The workshop was attended by over 30 experts in the field. The meeting was dedicated to opportunities and challenges of two complementary issues - strategies for targeting pathogen virulence factors and examples of the modification of the immune response to a pathogen - and the implications of this research for the BWC and biosecurity.

 The meeting was held just prior to the MXP in hopes of increasing the direct engagement of technical experts from key States Parties who could help draw out the implications for the BWC of the material presented by scientific experts and increase the opportunities for the results to inform the discussions during the MXP and beyond.