Welcome to the July edition of our newsletter featuring updates on organizations working to reduce Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (GCBRs), including:
A paper on the responsibility of Principal Investigators for flagging research with Dual-Use or Pandemic Risk;
A new multimodal benchmark that measures how well AIs can provide expert level assistance for work with viruses;
An open letter from 64 global experts calling for fair compensation in clinical research participation;
The final version of Blueprint Biosecurity's Far-UVC recommendations and a new Far-UVC funding opportunity;
The Implementation Plan for CEPI’s biosecurity strategy;
And more!
Blueprint Biosecurity is a nonprofit dedicated to achieving breakthroughs in humanity’s ability to prevent, mitigate, and suppress pandemics.
Published final version of our Far-UVC Blueprint, outlining recommendations for answering critical questions facing far-UVC.
Launched the EXHALE RFP. Up to $1M in funding. Focusing on quantifying how much far-UVC is needed to inactivate viral pathogens inside real, human-generated respiratory aerosols. $200 referral bonus available.
Presented on our research into glycol vapors and Far-UVC at the Biophysics of Airborne Infection workshop and Healthy Buildings Europe.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security (CHS) (newsletter) explores how new policy approaches, scientific advances and technological innovations can improve organizations, systems, policies and tools to prevent and respond to pandemics and biological threats.
Planning to host the 8th ELBI Research Symposium in Washington, DC, on July 16-17, and bring together the ELBI community to highlight the latest in health security. Journalist and author Carl Zimmer will be the dinner speaker at the symposium.
Published a peer-reviewed paper in PLOS Computational Biology examining the dual-use capabilities of concern associated with biological AI models.
Provided written comments to the European Commission's AI Office on the EU AI Act's definition of "general-purpose AI models," advocating for the inclusion of biological models within the regulatory scope.
Submitted written comments to the US Office of Science and Technology Policy on biosecurity considerations for the 2025 National AI R&D Strategic Plan.
Offered analysis and recommendations on strengthening oversight of advanced biological AI models to the Joint California Working Group on Frontier AI models.
1Day Sooner (news) is a nonprofit organization that advocates for high-impact medical studies and the efficient development and deployment of life-saving medical research and public health interventions.
64 global experts across disciplines spanning philosophy, law, medicine, policy, public health, patient advocacy, and research ethics have published a forceful open letter in The American Journal of Bioethics, calling for a reexamination of entrenched attitudes toward payment for clinical research participation. Organized by 1Day Sooner, the open letter titled “Pursuing Fair and Just Compensation for Research Participants: An Open Letter to the Research Ethics Community” urges institutional review boards/research ethics committees (IRB/RECs) to reconsider payment conservatism, which often defaults to low or no compensation out of a misguided abundance of caution.
1Day's Regulatory Policy Director Enlli Lewis and the Global Health Technology Coalition’s Senior Multilateral Policy & Advocacy Officer Philip Kenol published an article examining the potential effects of significant staffing reductions at the FDA and an upcoming opportunity through the Prescription Drug User Fee Act reauthorization for Congress to invest in the FDA’s workforce and secure the agency’s ability to lead globally.
1Day Africa built and released a malaria vaccine impact tracker that shows total number of lives saved and malaria vaccines distributed throughout Africa and broken down by country.
The Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics (CCDD) (newsletter) at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health focuses on improving methods for infectious disease modeling and statistical analysis, reducing biosecurity risks, engaging with policymakers to enhance decision-making, and training the next generation of scientists.
CCDD’s Director, Prof. Marc Lipsitch, authored a paper entitled Principal Investigator Responsibility for Flagging Research with Dual-Use or Pandemic Risk, commenting on the new U.S. Government dual-use policy by identifying preconditions for success, which are not fully laid out in the current regulations.
Lipsitch worked with NTI | bio on implementation guidance for their International Bio Funders Compact, which helps ensure that funders and recipients support biosecurity and biosafety best practices.
Lipsitch was invited as a global biosecurity expert to The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology summit in California, where he served as a discussion leader for the Pathogens track, and to the Paris Conference on Risks from Mirror Life.
The Asia Centre for Health Security (ACHS) (newsletter) is a new academic think tank, set-up to strengthen Asia’s readiness for biological threats through scientific evidence, building of expertise and capabilities, and the forging of strategic partnerships. Our vision is a united and resilient Asia safeguarded against health security threats for the well-being of future generations.
The Asia Centre for Health Security (ACHS) Webinar Series is held quarterly to discuss innovative developments in health security in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. The webinars are presented by leading experts in the fields of biosafety and biosecurity. The next instalment will be held on 24 July 2025, Thursday at 5pm (GMT +08:00), on the topic of “Risk Assessment for Deliberate Biothreat Events”. It will be presented by Professor Paul Arbon, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor and Director of the Torrens Resilience Initiative, Flinders University. Register at https://asia-chs.org/webinar/achs-webinar-series/ before 23 July, 5pm (GMT+08:00).
Following the successful launch of the ACHS Fellowship Program in 2025, ACHS is pleased to announce that the Program’s 2026 intake will open for applications in August 2025! This highly competitive programme unites exceptional graduate students and professionals globally and aims to inspire the next generation of biosecurity leaders. For more details, visit https://asia-chs.org/fellowship-programme/achs-fellowship-program/.
Sentinel Bio is a non-profit philanthropic fund focused on eliminating pandemic risks.
We are currently focusing narrowly on safeguards for advanced biotechnologies:
AIxBio:
With the Frontier Model Forum, we’re supporting an ambitious wet lab study to help assess whether frontier AI systems can aid non-experts to carry out expert-level biological research tasks.
We’re partnering with SecureBio to evaluate biological design tools and integrated AI tool stacks.
Nucleic acid governance:
We’re supporting an industry-led effort to build detailed risk-classification standards for nucleic acid sequences to enable enforceable screening policies.
We’re supporting various research projects, including to assess different nucleic acid products, map the DNA synthesis industry, and develop methods for function-based sequence screening.
We’re participating in various policy development efforts in the United States and Europe.
Additional biotechnology access control chokepoints:
We’re looking into other ‘chokepoints’ for biotechnology governance interventions, including live virus repositories, outsourced virology services, and cloud labs.
We hope to share more information about ongoing projects on our website soon.
CEPI works to accelerate the development of vaccines and other biologic countermeasures against epidemic and pandemic threats so they can be accessible to all people in need.
Following publication of its inaugural Biosecurity Strategy last year, in April 2025 CEPI published a corresponding Implementation Plan, outlining specific objectives, activities and timelines to achieve the Biosecurity Strategy across 2025-2026. Please see here for more info: https://cepi.net/biosecurity
To support successful implementation of the Biosecurity Strategy, CEPI is looking to establish Framework Agreements with a small group of implementing partners, with technical capabilities across diverse topic areas in biosafety, biosecurity, and logistics. A Request for Proposals was published on 15 June; the deadline for submissions is 30 July.
CEPI has featured its biosecurity work in a number of public events, including at the World Health Assembly at a Pandemic Action Network panel, and at this year’s BIO conference.
The Council on Strategic Risks (CSR) is a nonprofit, non-partisan security policy institute devoted to anticipating, analyzing and addressing core systemic risks to security in the 21st century, with special examination of the ways in which these risks intersect and exacerbate one another.
Members of CSR had the honor of developing the post-event entreaty on Condemning & Making Obsolete Biological Weapons following The Spirit of Asilomar and the Future of Biotechnology conference.
Our staff provided insight into the recent developments and findings regarding treaties related to countering weapons of mass destruction, based on the US State Department’s annual compliance reports.
The 2024-2025 cohort of the Fellowship for Ending Bioweapons Programs traveled to Boston, where the fellows engaged with leaders across academia and industry.
John Moulton recently spoke during the National Academies’ event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Biological Weapons Convention.
Andy Weber recently spoke at the NATO Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism.
Read our team’s latest briefer: Biosecurity and the Republic of Georgia.
Our next cohort of the Mid-Career Biodefense Bootcamp Fellowship will commence in August.
Meet our recent additions to the staff!
The Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund (newsletter) supports efforts to understand risks and develop governance frameworks for mirror biology research before it becomes technically feasible to create mirror life.
Alongside the Institut Pasteur, we hosted the Paris Conference on Risks from Mirror Life, the world’s first international meeting dedicated to understanding and addressing the risks posed by mirror organisms. There was broad agreement that mirror life should not be created, that regulation and law are necessary, and that further discussion should define regulatory boundaries that prevent the creation of mirror life while preserving progress in synthetic biology. See meeting summary and recorded talks.
An entreaty on the risks of mirror life was endorsed by almost 100 attendees of February’s Spirit of Asilomar summit. It states that “mirror life should not be created unless future research convincingly demonstrates that it would not pose severe risks”.
A report on biosecurity from the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change describes mirror life research as “high-risk, low-reward”.
A UK expert roundtable stated that “there should be a coalition among funders, researchers, governments and civil society to develop appropriate guidelines to manage the development of mirror molecules and prevent the development of replicating mirror organisms.”
Other recent articles: Le Monde, AFP, L’express, and Le Parisien (France), the Times and Financial Times (UK).
The Pandemic Center at the Brown University School of Public Health works to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience to pandemics, other biological emergencies, and the harms they pose to health, peace, security, and prosperity.
On July 17, the Pandemic Center will host a virtual event on mirror biology moderated by Senior Adviser Wilmot James and featuring James Smith, Deputy Director of the Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund, and Senior Adviser Beth Cameron.
We are partnering with the U.S. National Academy of Medicine to support the reconvening of the G20 High-Level Independent Panel, focusing on recommendations to bolster surge financing for medical countermeasures and preparedness.
In June, building on findings from the American Democracy and Health Security Initiative, we partnered with CDC Foundation, Common Health Coalition, Yale, Ariadne Labs, and the STAT Network to host a roundtable with state health officers and emergency managers on using digital and AI-enabled platforms to rapidly identify and respond to emerging threats.
In June, we published our annual Impact Report.
Tune in to Biosecurity: Changing the Game, a biweekly podcast by Game Changers Fellow Dinah Nasike.
SecureBio is a nonprofit research organization working on new technologies and policy proposals to delay, detect, and defend against catastrophic pandemics.
The Nucleic Acid Observatory continues to expand its pathogen surveillance capabilities and has doubled its sequencing compared to Q1. Our genetic engineering detection system has now analyzed a total of 892 billion read pairs and identified 413 chimeras, with 43 benign positives. Our partners have developed dashboards that summarize which pathogens we detect in wastewater samples. The NAO is also scaling its Boston-based nasal swab sampling program. With several newly hired field samplers, we're now collecting hundreds of individual samples each week. This effort has enabled us to estimate the sensitivity of wastewater metagenomic sequencing, which we've written about here.
The AI team has released its Virology Capabilities Test, a multimodal benchmark that measures how well AIs can provide expert level assistance for work with viruses. The research was covered in TIME. More information is also available in our write-up of the project. The team's biosafety evaluations of frontier models are in use by leading labs, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind and xAI. An overview of our AIxBio evaluations work can be found here. We have completed more benchmarks measuring expert capabilities on other topics, including: molecular and cell biology, human-infecting pathogens, and frontier biology problem solving. And we have developed agent eval suites that cover lab automation, DNA sequence design, and BDTs, as well as a new workstream covering agricultural biosecurity. We've delivered multiple briefings of our findings to senior stakeholders in industry and government. Lastly, the team partnered with the Forecasting Research Institute on a study about biosecurity risks from LLMs, which was also covered by TIME.
The International Biosecurity and Biosafety Initiative for Science (IBBIS) (news) is a Geneva-based nonprofit that works collaboratively with global partners to strengthen biosecurity norms and develop innovative tools to uphold them.
We released practical resources to support customer screening, including forms for onboarding new customers, decision guidance for orders including sequences of concern, and customer profiles that illustrate the challenges of verifying legitimacy, which have been used in workshops around the world
Recent IBBIS policy efforts in the EU include contributing to a joint briefing on Priorities to Uphold European Biosecurity in 2025, a collaborative responsive on Securing Europe's Biotechnology Future submitted to the European Commission’s call for evidence on the forthcoming EU Biotech Act, and a submission calling on the commission to prioritise biosecurity in their bioeconomy strategy.
IBBIS is collaborating across the synthesis screening community to support data resources and software tools that encourage robust screening, including acting as the institutional home for an international consortium developing standard test sets and risk assessments for sequences of concern. We are seeking additional international experts in pathogens or synthesis technology to join this consortium.
The Biosecurity Policy Unit at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience (CLTR) works closely with the UK Government and other stakeholders to reduce extreme biological risks.
We kicked off the London Defence Conference in May 2025 with a CLTR Biosecurity Resilience panel event featuring experts from the UK Cabinet Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the Ministry of Defence.
We privately circulated and briefed our 2025 RAND-CLTR Global Risk Index for AI-Enabled Biological Tools to multiple government teams and relevant intergovernmental bodies. A public version of this report is currently being prepared.
Our team participated in several events including the NATO Science for Peace and Security Programme in Malta, the international conference on the Risk from Mirror Life in France, the Council on Strategic Risk's Berlin Biosecurity Dialogue, and the Engineering Biology Research Consortium's Workshop on International Best Practices for Nucleic Acid Synthesis Screening.
We published a response to the release of the UK's Strategic Defence Review and engaged on the UK Biological Security Strategy Implementation Report.
1Day Sooner is seeking a People Operations Lead to support and enhance our remote-first, high-impact team. We’re looking for a team member with the experience and skills to take ownership of core functions with minimal supervision, and who is capable of and excited about designing and implementing improvements to our people ops processes. Deadline to apply is July 18.
Rosetta Commons Opens Applications for a 2025 Biosecurity Fellow: This unique 12-month fellowship offers the opportunity to work at the intersection of computational protein design and biosecurity policy. Fellows will engage with leading scientists and contribute to the responsible development of AI-enabled design tools.
Frontiers “Synthetic Nucleic Acid Technology: The Biosecurity Landscape” are soliciting submissions that explore biosecurity implications as they specifically relate to synthetic nucleic acid technology: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/71061/synthetic-nucleic-acid-technology-the-biosecurity-landscape
Initial manuscript summaries due September 3rd, 2025.
IBBIS will be hosting biosecurity drinks in Washington, DC, USA, next week, July 15th. We (Tessa and Anemone) will be there! You can register here.
We regularly solicit updates from a group of organizations that we believe are doing impactful work to reduce GCBRs in order to improve transparency, facilitate collaboration, and otherwise accelerate progress in our community. Do you have any opportunities (jobs, events, etc.) you would like to share with our network? Please use this form to submit them.
Did you find this newsletter helpful? Do you have ideas on how we could improve it? Please fill out this brief feedback form or email hello@tessa.fyi.
Cover image credit: http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101392770
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.