The Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science asked the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) to provide it with advice and input for a national Biosecurity Code of Conduct for scientists, as required by the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), which was ratified in 1972. The aim of the code of conduct is to prevent life sciences research or its application from directly or indirectly contributing to the development, production or stockpiling of biological weapons, as described in the BRWC, or to any other misuse of biological agents and toxins. The Code, which will prove useful to most bio-laboratories, has now been published in English, and can be freely downloaded here.