n FFRDC operated by the RAND Corporation under contract with DHS
OPERAT IONAL ANALYSIS CENTER
RESEARCH REPORT
DANIEL M. GERSTEIN, BIANCA ESPINOSA, ERINN. LEIDY
Emerging
Technology and
Risk Analysis
Synthetic Pandemics
T
hroughout history, pandemics have been
a risk to human existence. Experts have
warned with increasing frequency about
the risk of naturally occurring pandem-
ics, yet the emergence of severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS) coronavirus2 (SARS-CoV-2),
the virus that causes coronavirus disease2019
(COVID-19), brought a renewed global attention
to the threats associated with pandemics. One
account warned, “Pandemics can cause sudden,
widespread morbidity and mortality as well as
social, political, and economic disruption.”
1
In the
14th century, the bubonic plague pandemic known
as the Black Death “killed 30 to 50percent of
the entire population of Europe. Between 75 and
200million people died in a few years’ time,” and
the 1918 influenza pandemic resulted in 50million
deaths across the globe.
2
Experts now warn that
humans are at increasing risk for more naturally
occurring global pandemics, largely due to a wide
variety of human activities.
3
Advances in biotech-
nology and humans’ growing capacity to program
the essence of life extend to the deliberate use
of biotechnology to develop biological weapons
(BWs), including a pathogen that could be used to
cause a synthetic pandemic.
In considering the potential for a synthetic
pandemic, we assessed whether a pathogen could
be developed applying “engineering principles
to biology” that would be capable of sustained,
human-to-human transmission and causing mor-
tality and morbidity.
4
And, if so, how would such
an engineered pandemic compare with a naturally
occurring spillover event? Specifically, we consid-
ered whether either (1)the deliberate release of an
engineered pathogen by a state or bioterrorist as
a weapon or (2)an inadvertent release of an engi-
neered pathogen from a research laboratory could
result in a synthetic pandemic; for this assessment,
in keeping with the sponsor’s interest, our primary
focus was on a bioterrorist attack scenario.
This synthetic pandemic assessment built on
an earlier Homeland Security Operational Analysis
Center (HSOAC) 2020 study conducted for the
Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD]
Office (at the time, the Office of Health Affairs)
titled “Detecting Potential Threats from Biological
Agents.”
5
In that study, we analyzed how changes
in technology had affected the capabilities and
