The International Workshop on Trends in Science and Technology Relevant to the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) was held from October 31 – November 3, 2010, at the Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, China.

The meeting was sponsored by the InterAcademy Panel on International Issues (IAP), the International Union of Microbiological Societies (IUMS), the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB), the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. More than 80 delegates from 31 countries attended the workshop.

The workshop served as a good platform for the international scientific community to discuss trends in areas of science and technology that might be potentially relevant to the development of new or more deadly biological weapons or to developments in detection, diagnostics, therapeutics, or vaccines that could affect potential prevention and response to biological attacks. The workshop paid more attention to areas where there is disagreement about the potential implications of a development and to the reasons for a lack of consensus, such as a gap between the apparent promise of an emerging technology and its current realities. The report of the workshop will serve as an independent input from the scientific community to the 7th Review Conference of the BWC.