Institutional Review Entity (IRE)

Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC)

  • In 2014 the United States government released a policy for institutional oversight of life sciences dual use research of concern.
  • Dual use research of concern (DURC) is life sciences research that can be anticipated to provide knowledge, products or technologies that could be directly misapplied to pose a significant threat to public health, agriculture, the environment or national security.
  • The Institutional Review Entity (IRE) is the university committee which provides oversight for DURC.
  • The 2014 policy coves 15 agents/toxins and 7 categories of experiment.
  • If you plan to work with any of the 15 agents covering any of the 7 experimental categories, please contact the Institutional Contact for Dual Use Research (ICDUR) who is also the biosafety officer.

Standards & Regulations

15 Agents of DURC

  • Avian influenza virus (highly pathogenic)
  • Bacillus anthracis 
  • Botulinum neurotoxin (any quantity)
  • Burkholderia mallei
  • Burkholdeia pseudomallei 
  • Ebola virus 
  • Foot-and-mouth disease virus
  • Francisella tularensis
  • Marburg virus
  • Reconstructed 1918 influenza virus
  • Rinderpest virus
  • Clostridium botulinum
  • variola major virus
  • variola minor virus
  • Yersinia pestis

7 Experimental Categories of DURC

  1. Enhances the harmful consequences of the agent or toxin.
  2. Disrupts the immunity or the effectiveness of an immunization against the agent/toxin without clinical/agricultural justification.
  3. Confers to the agent/toxin resistance to clinically/agriculturally useful prophylactic or therapeutic interventions or facilitates their ability to evade detection methodologies.
  4. Increases the stability, transmissibility or the ability to disseminate the agent/toxin.
  5. Alters the host range.
  6. Enhances the susceptibility of a host population.
  7. Generates/reconstitutes an eradicated or extinct agent/toxin.