Threat assessment for research areas of concern.

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.