6 May 2026, Brasília

IBBIS and the Sociedade Brasileira de Biossegurança e Bioproteção (SB3) convened a closed-door workshop in Brasília on biosecurity, biotechnology governance, and DNA synthesis screening. The meeting, “Safeguarding the Brazilian bioeconomy,” brought policymakers, researchers, industry representatives, and biosecurity experts together over two days to examine what responsible governance looks like in the Brazilian and Latin American context.

Discussion focused on three areas:

• current practice and gaps in Brazil’s approach to synthesis screening;
• international approaches to screening and how they translate to the region;
• where shared data, governance tools, and coordination across government, academia, and industry can lower risk without slowing research.

IBBIS presented two of its tools to ground the conversation.

The Global DNA Synthesis Map sets out where synthesis capacity sits and how screening is applied across regions. commec, IBBIS’s free, open-source screening software, checks synthetic DNA orders against sequences of concern before they are manufactured, catching a hazardous sequence at the point of order. Together they show what current provision and screening trends mean for oversight on the ground.

The workshop ran with the participation and support of several Brazilian government agencies, including the Gabinete de Segurança Institucional da Presidência da República (GSI/PR).

For more, or to get involved in IBBIS’s work in Brazil, contact Mayra Ameneiros (mayra@ibbis.bio).