生物信息与国家安全

Biological Information and National Security

        王小理(中国科学院上海生命科学信息中心 上海 200031)
        阮梅花(中国科学院上海生命科学信息中心 上海 200031)
        刘晓(中国科学院上海生命科学信息中心 上海 200031)
        熊燕(中国科学院上海生命科学信息中心 上海 200031)
        于建荣(中国科学院上海生命科学信息中心 上海 200031)

         生物信息;风险管控;生物安全;国家战略

        biological information;risk regulation;biosecurity;national strategy

        生物信息是人类认识利用生物界的信息载体,是一种战略性资源,蕴含巨大的军事应用价值、经济价值和社会价值。随着生物信息爆炸性增长,生物信息安全已经成为国际社会高度关注的安全领域。在分析生物信息与国际安全关切关系整体现状基础上,文章阐述了我国生物信息领域国家安全所面临的复杂形势,提出了面临战略不清、政策不明、社会重视不足、技术不强等重大问题的综合性判断,并建议通过加强生物信息安全的综合治理、统筹各方资源和投入、强化科技部署等策略,提升我国生物信息综合安全能力。

        Over the past few decades, rapid developments in biotechnologies and developments in information technologies have combined to produce a tremendous amount of biological information with its potential applications of great economic value and social value. Various forms of contests and cooperation have been undertaken, sometimes obviously but often invisibly, by technologically advanced countries, scientific institutions, and biotechnology industry to collect, store, distribute, disseminate, and interpret biological information. Consequently, the emerging abuse and misuse of biological information have increased the need to strengthen the bio-risk regulation and to protect the individual privacy. The interests on biological information have reshaped the international biosecurity landscape. China have made great progress in bioinformatics and played an active role in international bioinformatics community with great contribution on biological information output. But from the perspective of international security landscape, there are some notable problems unresolved. These include: lack of information security sense; incapacity to implement the necessary standards and sharing regulations for biological information; misuse of critical biological information and indifference of privacy protection; and disadvantage of bioinformatics software. To fully take advantage of biological information, critical measures should be taken. Firstly, a national biodefense strategy and comprehensive policy on bioinformatics should be made, with focus on strict regulation on collection, storage, distribution, dissemination, interpretation, and use of biological information. Secondly, there should be a strategy to prompt government, academics, and industry engagement in bioinformatics R&D and its application. Thirdly, great attention should be paid on bioinformatics software development and bioinformatics infrastructure.