I am delighted to report that 2010 has begun as with an important and positive development for ICLS. We have received major new grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Nuclear Threat Initiative that will enable the Council to build in a substantive way on its successes. From a personal point of view, these grants will allow me to devote my energies full time to our projects and future development. I am fortunate to have a capable and dedicated team to enable the ICLS to strengthen even further its contribution to effort to enhance biosafety and biosecurity globally.

Our successes in 2009 have provided an even stronger foundation to advance our work. At the start of the year, in cooperation with the Royal Society in London, a very successful meeting was held in February with leading experts on developing a methodology for assessing the full spectrum of biological risk – a tool essential for successful policy-making on biological risk (see the report at http://royalsociety.org/New-approaches-to-biological-risk-assessment). We plan to develop this important work further. Later, in April, with partners in the Middle East and North Africa, the second regional Biosafety and Biosecurity International Conference (BBIC-09) was held in Casablanca, Morocco. Here a strategic framework for the development of national and regional strategies for biosafety and biosecurity was endorsed (BBIC-09 Final Statement). I am glad to report that following this important event, a steering group has begun its work, as well as a group of experts to advance a study on the feasibility of setting up regional biosafety and biosecurity training centres. We are enormously grateful to our private and governmental funding partners and experts, from within and outside the region, who have supported this work. I look forward to continued and strengthened collaboration to develop the BBIC process further.

We are also seeking to strengthen our activities in other parts of the world, such as in Russia and Central Asia (read more), and on important global issues such as the development of policy, best practices and guidelines for safe and secure conduct of synthetic biology. With regard to the latter I am pleased to report the establishment of a formal link between ICLS and the European-based International Association for Synthetic Biology (IASB) (read more). I am confident that this relationship will help further effective and practical policies to enable this important technological area to advance safely and securely. We have further strengthened our European connection by establishing ICLS as a non-profit entity in Brussels.

I am confident that ICLS will make an even more effective contribution to biosafety and biosecurity in 2010 and beyond. None of our work is possible without the financial support of private individuals and organisations and, as well as governments. For this support, on behalf of staff of ICLS, and our network of project partners around the world, I must express our heartfelt thanks. There is much to be done and we very much need financial support and the participation of experts in the life sciences field. If you would like to learn more about ICLS or would like to join in supporting our work do not hesitate to contact me (taylor@iclscharter.org).

I wish all our partners and friends much success over the coming year. 

Terence Taylor
President