Well-intended Research In The Wrong Hands Can Become A Weapon Of Terror

C&EN managing editor Ivan Amato wrote the compelling feature after interviews with scientists from academia, government, and industry who are working to address growing concerns about misuse of legitimate scientific research. "Chemists have not worried enough about the consequences of the molecules that they make," states Roald Hoffmann, who shared the 1981 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Hoffmann has chosen to address this issue in an usual way--theater. His new play, Should've, focuses on the moral and political fallout from a synthetic toxin that falls into the hands of terrorists. Hoffmann calls on scientists to "confront the reality that well-intentioned research that holds promise to cure disease, clean water and otherwise improve the conditions of life also can be commandeered for sinister purposes."

Other experts in the article discuss the possibility of using oversight boards to monitor research on potentially dangerous research projects; introducing ethical discussions into the classroom to sensitize undergraduate and graduate students to the possible misuse of scientific research, even their own; and the need for scientists to adapt a new, more vigilant and intentional way of thinking about the implications of their research.

Article "Experiments of Concern: Well-intentioned research, in the wrong hands, can become dangerous."