Table 1. Threat assessment for research areas of concern.
| Expertise ThresholdLow – (3)Medium – (2)High – (1) | Equipment ThresholdLow – (3)Medium – (2)High – (1) | Threat Level | |
| Enhance the dissemination of a biological agent by contamination of food or water supplies late in a distribution chain | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| Increase the environmental stability of a biological agent by mechanical means, e.g., microencapsulation | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Confer resistance to therapeutically useful antibiotics or antiviral agents | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Facilitate the production of biological agents | 2 | 2 | 4 |
| Enhance the dissemination of a biological agent by contamination of food or water supplies early in a distribution chain | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Enhance the dissemination of a biological agent as powder or aerosol | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Synthetic creation of viruses | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Render a vaccine ineffective | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Enhance the virulence of a biological agent | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Increase the transmissibility of a biological agent | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Enhance the infectivity of a biological agent | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Alter the host range of a biological agent | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Render a non-pathogenic biological agent virulent | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Insertion of virulence factors | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Enhance the resistance of a biological agent to host immunological defence | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Insertion of host genes into a biological agent to alter the immune or neural response | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Generate a novel pathogen | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Increase the environmental stability of a biological agent by genetic modification | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Enable the evasion of diagnostic or detection modalities | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Targeting materials to specific locations in the body | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Calculated according to the formula total threat = (expertise threshold) × (equipment threshold), this table presents individual DURC activities according to the ease with which a terrorist organization could be expected to replicate the work, based on expertise and equipment thresholds. The highest threat level comes from DURC activities that were deemed to require overcoming only low expertise and low equipment thresholds (such as contaminating a food or water source with an unaltered pathogen). Conversely, the lowest threat comes from highly sophisticated DURC activities that would need to overcome high equipment and expertise thresholds, such as those that would be required to substantially alter the genetic nature of a pathogen.