Life Sciences Dual-Use Research of Concern

All research at Virginia Tech will need to be in compliance with federal policies related to dual use research of concern (DURC), pathogens with (enhanced) pandemic potential (P(E)PP), and dangerous gain of function (dGOF).  

The Associate Vice President for the Division of Scholarly Integrity and Research Compliance serves as the Virginia Tech institutional contact for dual use research (DURC).

The Institutional Review Entity (IRE) is the institutional oversight committee that will review experiments that researchers or federal funding agencies identify as potential dual use research of concern (DURC), pathogens with enhanced pandemic potential (PEPP), and dangerous gain of function (dGOF). The IRE will work with the researchers and Sponsored Programs to provide the IRE's determination to the appropriate federal funding agency, and to perform  a risk-benefit analysis to generate risk mitigation plans, as necessary.

Dual Use Research is research conducted for legitimate purposes that generates knowledge, information, technologies, and/or products that can be utilized for benevolent or harmful purposes. Dual use research becomes DURC when it can be reasonably anticipated that the result could be misapplied with no, or only minor modification to pose a significant threat with potential consequences to public health and safety, agriculture, animals, the environment, or national security.

A pathogen with pandemic potential (PPP) is a pathogen that is likely capable of wide and uncontrollable spread in a human population, which would likely cause moderate to severe disease and/or mortality in humans. A pathogen with enhanced pandemic potential (PEPP) is a pathogen resulting from experiments that enhance a PPP's transmissibility or virulence, or disrupts the effectiveness of pre-existing immunity, regardless of its progenitor agent, such that it may pose a significant threat to public health, the capacity of health systems to function, or national security.

On May 7, 2025, Executive Order 14292 was implemented, regarding research considered to be dangerous gain of function (dGOF). Dangerous gain of function research is defined as scientific research on an infectious agent or toxin with the potential to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or increasing its transmissibility. Covered research activities are those that could result in significant societal consequences and that seek or achieve one or more of the following outcomes

• enhancing the harmful consequences of the agent or toxin;
• disrupting beneficial immunological response or the effectiveness of an immunization against the agent or toxin;
• conferring to the agent or toxin resistance to clinically or agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions against that agent or toxin or facilitating their ability to evade detection methodologies;
• increasing the stability, transmissibility, or the ability to disseminate the agent or toxin;
• altering the host range or tropism of the agent or toxin;
• enhancing the susceptibility of a human host population to the agent or toxin; or
• generating or reconstituting an eradicated or extinct agent or toxin.

It is the responsibility of all researchers to immediately contact the Institutional Biosafety Committee Program office (ibc@vt.edu) if they believe that their research may potentialy involve dual use research, pathogens with pandemic potential, or dangerous gain of function.