Mission Statement

The Center for Biosecurity is an independent, nonprofit organization of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC). The Center works to affect policy and practice in ways that lessen the illness, death, and civil disruption that would follow large-scale epidemics, whether they occur naturally or result from the use of a biological weapon.

Drawing on the expertise of a multidisciplinary professional staff with experience in government, medicine, public health, bioscience, and the social sciences, the Center's projects aim to:

• Provide independent, critical research and analysis for decision makers in government, national security, bioscience, medicine, public health, and private industry
• Build international networks of scientists, medical and public health practitioners, scholars, and decision makers to improve communication about biosecurity, create common objectives, and facilitate development of new knowledge
• Propose, design, build, test, and promulgate essential operational systems needed to manage the response to bioattacks and mass casualty epidemics
• Develop scenarios for decision makers that illustrate key challenges in epidemic preparedness and response and offer possible paths forward
• Promote the responsible use and governance of increasingly powerful bioscience and biotechnologies.

Experts at the Center publish research findings regularly and have been consulted by government agencies, businesses, academia, and the media for independent analyses of issues pertaining to national and global epidemic preparedness and response.