Friday, June 05, 2026

KAIST study provides first large-scale empirical analysis of dual-use research and security oversight

The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

A new analysis of approximately 600,000 research papers reveals structural limits to single-country security oversight of dual-use research and identifies trade-offs that policymakers face when strengthening such oversight.

KAIST (President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced today that Professor Seokbeom Kwon of the School of Business and Technology Management has published a large-scale empirical analysis examining the structural limitations of tightening security oversight on dual-use research and its potential cost to scientific progress. The study appears in Science on June 5, 2026.

Dual-use research (DUR) refers to scientific research that has both legitimate civilian applications—such as vaccine and treatment development—and potential security-sensitive applications, such as biological weapons or bioterrorism. Examples include research on viral transmission mechanisms or pathogen behavior.

The United States has been strengthening security oversight of dual-use research. Most recently, Executive Order 14292, signed in May 2025, intensified federal oversight of biological research with potential security implications, including dangerous gain-of-function research. The U.S. government also has extended the policy definition of the dual-use research to include broader categories in addition to the gain-of-function research. However, existing policy dialogues have relied primarily on anecdotal evidence and historical case studies.

U.S. ex-ante security oversight institutions are based on National Security Decision Directive 189 (NSDD-189) and apply when the federal government is involved in research. Therefore, research conducted without federal government involvement effectively falls outside the jurisdiction of this oversight.

Professor Seokbeom Kwon developed a new analytical methodology combining the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s multi-stage security review process with patent-paper citation data, and analyzed approximately 600,000 research papers. The work has been recognized in academia for shifting discussions of dual-use research, which had previously relied largely on case-based analysis, toward large-scale empirical analysis.

The analysis showed that dual-use research consistently has greater scientific impact than comparable research. This means that research subject to the security oversight tends to play an important role in scientific progress and technological innovation.

In addition, the share of dual-use research directly involving the U.S. federal government decreased from about 41% in 1981 to about 22% in 2005, while the share involving foreign institutions increased from 35% to 54% over the same period. This shows that while U.S. security oversight mechanisms based on NSDD-189 have been applied to domestic research, the share of overseas dual-use research has continued to expand.

Professor Seokbeom Kwon explained, “Strengthening security oversight on dual-use research by a single country alone may impose disproportionate costs on domestic science, while having structural limits in preventing the development of equally important research conducted overseas,” adding, “To achieve both scientific progress and national security, international cooperation and balanced policy design could contribute to mitigating these structural tensions.”

This study provides data-based evidence for international policy discussions surrounding dual-use research. In particular, it is expected to serve as an important reference for future discussions on research security regulation and global cooperation systems not only in biotechnology, but also in advanced technology fields that may be connected to security concerns, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and quantum technology.

This study was published as a sole-author paper by Professor Seokbeom Kwon in Science on June 5, 2026.
※ Paper title: “Dual-use research under scrutiny,” DOI: 10.1126/science.aee2479

This research was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea’s Humanities and Social Sciences Young Researcher Support Program (2025S1A5A8009362).

DOI

10.1126/science.aee2479

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Dual-use research under scrutiny

Article Publication Date

5-Jun-2026

Inventory drawdowns mask impact of Hormuz disruption as clock runs down towards a September supply crunch

Global inventory releases have cushioned the blow of the Hormuz disruption so far, but they are headed towards a supply cruch in mid-September when a technical minimum is reached, says Oxford Economics. / bne IntelliNewsFacebook

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By Ben Aris in Berlin June 4, 2026

Global oil markets are relying heavily on inventory drawdowns to offset a supply shock caused by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, with OECD stockpiles potentially reaching stress levels by mid-September if current trends persist, according to Oxford Economics.

The consultancy estimates that around 14mn barrels per day (mbpd) of oil that would normally pass through the Strait of Hormuz was removed from the market in April from a total of 20mbpd pre-war, after accounting for available bypass pipeline capacity. Additional output from producers outside the Gulf and an existing market surplus reduced the effective supply loss to roughly 10mbpd, while higher prices cut demand by about 3mbpd. The remaining shortfall of approximately 5.7mbpd has been met through inventory drawdowns.

“This adjustment explains why shortages have not yet become acute,” Oxford Economics said. “The market has not had to replace the full loss of Hormuz flows, instead relying on demand destruction, additional non-Gulf supply, and inventory drawdowns to absorb the remaining gap.”

Global oil inventories are declining at a record rate as the market absorbs a major Middle East supply disruption but these mitigating factors mean there is still some wiggle room and oil prices, while elevated, have not reached the catastrophic levels predicted by some at the start of the conflict in February.

The Strait of Hormuz, located between Oman and Iran, handles roughly a fifth of global oil consumption under normal conditions. A prolonged disruption would place sustained pressure on both physical supply chains and global economic growth.

Oxford Economics argued that the key issue is not the complete exhaustion of inventories but the point at which stock levels become low enough to trigger defensive behaviour among governments, refiners and traders.

Global oil inventories stood at approximately 7,950mn barrels in April, while OECD industry and government stocks totalled 3,889mn barrels, including 2,712mn barrels held by industry.

Inventories become stressed when OECD industry stocks fall below 52 days of forward demand, equivalent to 2,308mn barrels. Based on current drawdown rates of 146mn barrels per month, OECD industry inventories would reach that threshold by mid-September, which would induce fresh panic and spiking prices.

However, that deadline might be extended to January 2027 depending on how big the effects of demand destruction are.

“The IEA reported that global oil demand fell by 3mbpd to 101.3mbpd in April. Given that prices had increased by 84%, this implies an elasticity of -0.03, in line with our earlier expectations. Crude supply from outside the Gulf increased by 1.6mbpd, implying a supply elasticity of 0.02,” Oxford Economics reports.

Over time, market participants could adjust further to higher prices, as these responses occur with a lag. Consumers can reduce fuel demand by changing behaviour or switching technologies, but decisions such as purchasing an EV take time to feed through. Producers also face lead times when drilling new wells or expanding supply, while refiners and other midstream participants need time to optimise operations, for example by prioritising transport fuels.

In addition, the rapid roll out of green energy sources is working to reduce the demand for oil and gas. Renewables have already saved Europe €100mn every day since the start of the Iran war as now half of Europe’s power is generated from renewable sources – and that capacity will continue to grow.

“This suggests that the demand and supply response could increase over time, which would reduce the pull on inventories. Indeed, a 50% increase in this adjustment would reduce the draw on inventories to 3.3mbpd (Chart 2), extending the run room to January 2028,” Oxford Economics said.

The International Energy Agency’s co-ordinated release of an all-time record 400mn barrels of oil from strategic reserves has already helped cushion the market. Oxford Economics noted that 310mn barrels remain available from the 400mn total, which should continue to support industry inventories until September.

The consultancy said emerging economies in Asia-Pacific and Africa face the greatest risk of shortages because they are less able to compete for increasingly expensive replacement supplies. By contrast, developed OECD economies are generally better positioned to secure available cargoes at prevailing prices.

Oxford Economics said pressure on Washington and Tehran to reach a ceasefire deal as the technical minimum OECD inventory levels are approached.

OECD itself warned on June 4 of a “dark scenario” for the global economy if the energy crisis drags on into the second half of 2027: global growth would collapse to just 2.1% this year and 1.8% next — levels last seen in the pandemic and the 2008 global financial meltdown. Energy prices would surge 50% above futures markets, triggering shortages, scarring effects on potential output, and severe hits to AI investment and semiconductor supply chains, the OECD warns. Central banks would be forced to hike interest rates by 0.5–0.75 points to fight inflation, squeezing governments’ already tight fiscal space further.

Oxford also highlighted uncertainty surrounding China’s inventory position, which is playing a major role. Between them, China and the US consume a third of global oil making them central to how the crisis plays out.

The IEA estimates that Chinese oil demand has fallen by only 0.1mbpd, far short of the fall in imports. Lower refinery runs and some switching from oil to coal in petrochemical production may explain part of the gap, but the scale of the adjustment remains difficult to reconcile.

Chinese imports fell by 3.6mbpd in April while observable inventories remained broadly unchanged, leading some analysts to suggest that the country may be drawing on underground reserves that are not visible through satellite monitoring. If those stocks prove more limited than expected, Chinese imports could rebound sharply, accelerating pressure on global supplies.

The US also remains a critical variable. US exports rose by 3.5mbpd in April, helping to ease shortages elsewhere, but any move by President Donald Trump to restrict exports in an effort to contain domestic fuel prices could tighten global markets further and hasten the depletion of inventories.

Gene swapping helped build the planet's decomposers

A new study reveals that horizontal gene transfer contributed to the repeated evolution of fungi-like, absorption-feeding life across eukaryotes.

Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) Graduate University

Cases of horizontal gene transfer between the four osmotrophic groups — image:
The bar chart shows the number of horizontal gene transfer events detected between each pair of osmotrophic groups. Uncertainty remains in some cases concerning the direction of the transfer events.
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Credit: Ocaña-Pallarès et al. Signatures of gene transfer in the parallel evolution of osmotrophic specialization in eukaryotes. Nat Ecol Evol (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-03054-w

Decomposers are crucial for keeping Earth habitable, breaking down dead biomass and returning key nutrients, like carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus, back into the ecosystem. Most decomposers, including fungi, survive through osmotrophy — a means of feeding by absorbing dissolved nutrients rather than engulfing prey. But how this method of feeding repeatedly arose across the eukaryotic tree of life remains unclear.

Now, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan, the University of Oxford in the UK, the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, the Institute of Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain, among other institutions, have reconstructed the deep history of osmotrophic specialization in eukaryotes (organisms with complex cells). Their findings suggest that four groups of eukaryotes which have specialized in osmotrophy first arose between 720 million and 1 billion years ago and that they share a toolkit of genes involved in osmotrophic functions. Their results also indicate that horizontal gene transfer, that is, the process by which genes move from one species to another, played an important role in the evolution of these functions.

The paper, recently published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, adds to the slow shift in how biologists think about how life evolves and how genes are inherited.

“Horizontal gene transfer used to be framed as just a peculiarity that happens in bacteria, with eukaryotes passing genes down vertically to their offspring,” says Professor Gergely Szöllősi, who leads the Model-based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at OIST. “Instead, we show that even in eukaryotes, the branches of the tree of life can, and do, exchange genetic material, and those exchanges can allow entirely new ways of making a living to take hold.”

Digging deep into the history of decomposers

In this research, the team compared the genomes of species within four distantly related osmotrophic groups. Apart from Fungi, which is the most well known and studied of these groups, three other eukaryotic lineages also transitioned towards a specialised osmotrophic lifestyle: Pseudofungi, Labyrinthulea and Teretosporea.

“Despite siting at opposite sides of the eukaryotic tree, a suite of traits have repeatedly evolved in these groups as an adaptation to an osmotrophic lifestyle, including filamentous networks and tough cell walls,” says lead author, Eduard Ocaña-Pallarès, a former post-doc in Szöllősi’s Unit, now a Ramón y Cajal research fellow at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. “Importantly, they also share a common metabolic toolkit necessary for osmotrophy, including genes involved in nutrient uptake, ion regulation and anabolic metabolism. We wanted to know where these shared genes came from.”

By analyzing hundreds of gene trees, the researchers identified 166 cases where horizontal gene transfer was likely to have occurred between these groups, involving genes mostly related to metabolic functions. In particular, horizontal gene transfer occurred predominantly between Fungi and Pseudofungi, and between Labyrinthulea and Teretosporea.

“It could be that we see ‘transfer highways’ between these groups due to their shared terrestrial and aquatic ecology, respectively,” suggests Szöllősi.

Unanswered questions

Looking forward, the researchers pinpoint important directions for future research, including deciphering the actual function of these shared genes within each group.

A further mystery to solve is how horizontal gene transfer happened between these lineages. “For example, was it driven by the acquisition of foreign DNA directly from the environment or through viral intermediates?” says Ocaña-Pallarès. “The main question is not anymore if horizontal gene transfer takes place in eukaryotes, but how it occurs. We still know very little about the mechanisms driving this process in eukaryotes.”

Journal

Nature Ecology & Evolution

DOI

10.1038/s41559-026-03054-w