New center at Texas A&M targets biological threats

College Station, Tx ( FOX 44 ) – A new center designed to support efforts to keep the world safe from biological threats has been created at Texas A&M.

It is being called the Biosecurity and Pandemic Policy Center and is being created within the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs by Texas A&M’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.

The center will support efforts to ensure a world safe, secure and resilient against existential biological threats, such as severe pandemics and biological weapons, through high-impact, non-partisan research and education on relevant policy issues, including preparing for future pandemics and improving security in the life sciences.

“Through the Scowcroft Institute, The Bush School has been a leader in policy on biosecurity,” said John Sherman, dean of The Bush School. “This new research capability will further grow the beneficial impact to society that The Bush School’s stellar faculty and students produce.”

The new center will be led by Dr. Gerald W. Parker, associate dean of Global One Health and the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine.

Parker is an internationally recognized expert who has testified in front of Congress several times on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. Parker serves on advisory committees or boards to the National Institutes of Health, the Department of Defense, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense.

“The Biosecurity and Pandemic Policy Center will build upon our work to provide evidenced-based national and international policy options needed to mitigate the risks of high-consequence biological threats, whether deliberate, accidental or natural, that pose existential threats to public safety, agriculture, the economy and national security,” Parker said.

We created a program focused on pandemics in 2015, five years before COVID-19 struck, because we believed it was not a matter of if, but when, a pandemic would occur,” said Andrew Natsios, director of the Scowcroft Institute of International Affairs. “The action of the Board of Regents will institutionalize our program into a more permanent structure as disease threats are growing more common and more deadly.”

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