Scientists as spies?: Assessing U.S. claims about the security threat posed by China's Thousand Talents Program for the U.S. life sciences.

In 2008, the Chinese government created the Thousand Talents Program (TTP) to recruit overseas expertise to build up China's science and technology knowledge and innovation base. Ten years later, in 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced a new "China Initiative" that aimed to counter the transfer by U.S.-based scientists involved in the TTP of knowledge and intellectual property that could support China's military and economic might and pose threats to U.S. national security. This initiative launched a number of investigations into major U.S. federal funding agencies and universities and charged several scientists, many of them life scientists, with failing to accurately report their work and affiliations with Chinese entities and illegally transferring scientific information to China. Although the FBI cases demonstrate a clear problem with disclosure of foreign contracts and research integrity among some TTP recipients, they have failed to demonstrate any harm to U.S. national security interests. At the heart of this controversy are core questions that remain unresolved and need more attention: What is required to transfer and develop knowledge to further a country's science and technology ambitions? And can the knowledge acquired by a visiting scientist be easily used to further a country's ambitions? Drawing on literature from the field of science and technology studies, this article discusses the key issues that should be considered in evaluating this question in the Chinese context and the potential scientific, intelligence, and policy implications of knowledge transfer as it relates to the TTP.

Anticipating Emerging Biotechnology Threats: A case study of CRISPR.

This article discusses the contingencies and complexities of CRISPR. It outlines key problems regarding off-target effects and replication of experimental work that are important to consider in light of CRISPR's touted ease of use and diffusion. In light of literature on the sociotechnical dimensions of the life sciences and biotechnology and literature on former bioweapons programs, this article argues that we need more detailed empirical case studies of the social and technical factors shaping CRISPR and related gene-editing techniques in order to better understand how they may be different from other advances in biotechnology-or whether similar features remain. This information will be critical to better inform intelligence practitioners and policymakers about the security implications of new gene-editing techniques.

The social context shaping bioweapons (non)proliferation.

This article explores the practices behind the creation and transfer of knowledge related to biological weapons (BW) in the former Soviet BW program and their implications for understanding bioweapons proliferation. Using in-depth interviews collected for an ongoing oral history project of the Soviet and U.S. bioweapons programs, this article shows that BW proliferation is a complex issue that involves thus far unrecognized social factors that can shape the production and proliferation of bioweapons knowledge. The article highlights (1) the local and personal character of bioweapons knowledge, specialized skills, and scientific know-how, which cannot be transferred easily from one person to another and from one location to another; (2) the importance of organization and management style in creating certain types of knowledge and skills and allowing or preventing the transfer of those skills to occur within and outside an organization; and (3) the differences that exist among various groups of former Soviet BW facilities in their ability to efficiently transfer bioweapons knowledge and laboratory skills. The article concludes with a discussion on the policy implications of these findings and provides guidance for constructing and implementing a more consistent and rigorous set of targeted nonproliferation interventions to address facility-specific "brain-drain" threats involving former bioweaponeers.