Since 2015, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine has organized a series of meetings on the challenges of emerging infections, laboratory safety, and global health security with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CCDC), and other Chinese life science and public health organizations. Academy members and other top-flight American researchers in human and animal virology and immunology participated, including current and former directors of BSL-4 laboratories, former CDC, and former uniform military biodefense experts. They have met with China’s BSL-4 laboratory directors and researchers from top universities and research centers across China. The topics discussed included basic and applied research on infectious diseases; the challenges of combating emerging infections; life-science collaboration and research-data sharing; high-containment biological laboratory management, safety and security; and responsible conduct in the use of gene editing in infectious disease research.
The meetings enabled scientists from the United States and China to discuss research findings on diseases of mutual concern to China and the United States, to share best practices and lessons learned for managing and operating high containment biological laboratories, and to establish new collaborative research and institutional partnerships. Connecting scientists in China and the United States allows those working to combat emerging infectious disease to identify and implement the best management, safety, and security standards in their laboratories, and to create research collaboration and training partnerships to improve laboratory safety and security and to further basic and applied science on emerging infectious diseases.