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Disruptive Technologies

A bus carrying a team of experts from the World Health Organization departs an airport in Wuhan on Jan. 14, 2021, after arriving in the Chinese city to investigate the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. That investigation is widely seen as having been obstructed by Chinese authorities. (Photo by Kyodo News via Getty Images)

How COVID-19’s origins were obscured, by the East and the West

By Nicholas Wade | Analysis, Biosecurity, Disruptive Technologies

Wuhan Institute of Virology

COVID-19 lab-leak theory: Gain-of-function is a hot topic, but a bad explanation

By Nicholas G. Evans, Anna Muldoon | Disruptive Technologies

Boris Johnson

How to trash confidence in a COVID-19 vaccine: Brexit edition

By Stephan Lewandowsky, Stefanie Egidy, Ralph Hertwig, Ulrike Hahn | Disruptive Technologies

How UNSCOM found and destroyed Iraq’s biological weapons

By Filippa Lentzos, Henrietta Wilson | Biosecurity

Woods Hole inlet with boats

We knocked the genes out of a zebrafish—and other tales from CRISPR summer school

By Dan Drollette Jr | Disruptive Technologies, Personal Essay, Special Topics, Synthetic biology

A dual-use chlorine plant.

Puzzling out the Iraqi biological weapons program

By David R. Franz | Disruptive Technologies

UN weapons inspectors

Introduction: UNSCOM and the future of WMD verification

By Henrietta Wilson, Filippa Lentzos | Disruptive Technologies

Between two wars

By Rolf Ekéus | Disruptive Technologies

A perspective on UNSCOM culture

By Tim Trevan | Disruptive Technologies

Nurse cares for patient.

The known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns of COVID-19

By W. Ian Lipkin | Disruptive Technologies

Monitoring Iraq’s dual-use capabilities: An interview with Gabriele Kraatz-Wadsack

By Filippa Lentzos | Biosecurity

Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao LIjian.

After the lab-leak theory, US-Chinese relations head downhill

By Yanzhong Huang | Disruptive Technologies