Pandemics and similar threats from zoonotic diseases can bring humans face-to-face with gaps in knowledge and evidence to respond in real time. Researchers at the NSF COMPASS Center and the Pandemic Prediction and Prevention Destination Area (PPP DA) at Virginia Tech are innovating new ways to predict how and when animal viruses could mutate to affect humans, understand how these viruses will interact with human systems and persist in the environment, develop pharmaceutical treatments to support patients who might become infected, and study how viruses spread through populations to cause epidemics or pandemics.

With innovative approaches and technologies come ethical questions. What issues arise in building machine learning systems for predicting viral mutations that might be dangerous to human health? How do we create tissue culture environments for studying viruses that include diverse human demographics? What are appropriate ways to communicate uncertainty in predictions made by computational models? How do we ensure full representation of vulnerable communities in clinical trials and equitable distribution of resources, including vaccines and drugs?

We recognize the need to incorporate community voices and feedback to formulate responses to these questions. We cannot develop equitable research and plans without learning about and responding to the needs of citizens. The goal of “Ethics and Pandemic Science: A National Dialogue” hosted by Virginia Tech is to bring together the expertise of community leaders, social, computational, and life scientists, and bioethicists to begin a conversation about ethical concerns that arise in research on pandemic science topics.

The National Dialogue will include community leaders, leading scholars in pandemic sciences, representatives from federal agencies, and other members of the research ecosystem to strengthen practices and accountability for the ethical conduct of pandemic research over the next decade. Our goals are to identify and build consensus on priority concerns about the ethics of pandemic research at local, regional, and national levels. Our hope is that we will have a list of key concerns and questions that community leaders and researchers can further investigate and address in everyday interactions with constituents. We will share recommendations from the National Dialogue with participants, the pandemic research community, and the public. We anticipate holding these Dialogues every two years to further the conversation and to build consensus and propose policies.

This event is by invitation only.

Please view the current agenda by opening the PDF below.

Agenda website final

The River Inn
924 25th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20037

Please open the current participant list by clicking the link below. 

MergedParticipant list