Biosecurity

Community

• Reach out to us at Info@EffectiveAltruismDC.org or fill out this form to be connected to the EA biosecurity community in DC

• Biosecurity in EA Facebook group

• East Bay, California Biosecurity group

Reading Resources

• Introductions

  • 80,000 Hours

    • Biosecurity problem overview

    • Howie Lempel (Open Philanthropy) interview

    • Beth Cameron (Nuclear Threat Initiative (bio)) interview

    • Tom Inglesby (John Hopkins centre for health security) interview

• Emerging Tech Policy article

• Concise overview from Open Philanthropy

• Second Step Resources

  • Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security – Technologies to address Global catastrophic Biological Risks

  • Open Phil R&D to decrease risks from viral pathogens

  • Biosecurity in context of other catastrophic risks: Global priorities project with FHI + CSER – unprecedented technological risks

  • Global Preparedness Monitoring Board annual report 2019 – global state of affairs, gaps, recommendations for leaders/decision-makers.

  • FHI – powerful actor, high impact bio-threats expert meeting report 1

  • James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation studies biorisk material 1

• Interesting but less directly relevant

  • APPG for future generations launch paper on long-termism policy routes

  • FHI biotech research links

  • CSER paper on new tech, “A transatlantic perspective on 20 emerging issues in biological engineering”

  • List of Open Philanthropy Project’s Biosecurity grants

Newsletters

• Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security daily brief newsletter

• Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations – Newsletter

• The Pandora Report (from George Mason University Biodefense program, collects useful links every week, back-copies available)

• Global Biodefense Headlines

Courses & Learning

• BlueDot Impact Biosecurity Fundamentals

• FutureLearn: Next Generation Biosecurity – Created by Bath University biosecurity experts. Intro to biosecurity , ethical and policy issues, and how it applies to lab research in particular.

• Not really a course but not really a reading: watching through the CladeX live-stream (highly informative about potential US government response to emerging pandemic)

• WHO course on Pandemic and Epidemic-prone diseases

Relevant Organizations

• Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness – A global alliance financing and coordinating the development of vaccines against infectious diseases. Budget ~ £570 million, based in Norway with an office in London

• Biosecurity Research Initiative at St Catharine’s (Cambridge) – establishing a world-class hub that will provide cutting edge, evidence-based information about existing and emerging biological security risks and interventions.

• Francis Crick Institute – A biomedical discovery institute researching the biology underlying human health. Largest in Europe.

• Wellcome Trust 1 – Foundation that supports researchers, takes on big health challenges and campaigns for better science. Aims to spend £1 billion a year.

• Future of Humanity Institute – Working with institutions around the world to reduce risks from especially dangerous pathogens

• Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (Cambridge) – Have begun to develop a research agenda for Global Catastrophic Biological Risks

• Nuffield Bioethics – an independent body that informs policy and public debate about the ethical questions raised by biological and medical research

• UK Public Health Rapid Support Team – A specialist team ready to respond to disease outbreaks around the world before they develop into health emergencies. The team also conducts rigorous operational research to improve epidemic preparedness.

• APPG Future Generations

• The Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House – examines key global health challenges and how they manifest themselves as foreign policy and international affairs problems.

• UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster reduction

• Imperial College Institute for Security Science and Technology – Researchers focused on several aspects, including the potential dual-use of synthetic biology, detecting and responding to disease outbreaks, and securing the food supply chain from threats.

• Chatham House centre for global health security

• BioRISC, St Catharine’s College, Cambridge– launched July 2019. Providing evidence-based information about current and emerging bio-risks.

• Centre for Biosecurity and Biopreparedness – setup by Danish Government in 2001

• US Gov

  • CDC

  • NIH

  • IARPA

  • BARDA

  • DTRA

• Skoll Global Threats Fund

• The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

• Open Philanthropy Project

• Centre for International Security and Cooperation (Stanford)

• Nuclear Threat Initiative (USA)

• Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense (USA) – lobbying to strengthen US biodefense

• Global Catastrophic Risk Institute

• Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security (USA)

• Georgetown Centre for Global Health, Science, and Security

• Belfer Centre at Harvard School of Government

• Centre for Strategic and International studies health and security program

• James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies

• UPMC Centre for Health Security

• G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction (includes “Biological security” as one of its priority areas)

• Biological Weapons Convention

• Canadian government organizations: Global Affairs Canada, Public Health Agency of Canada

• ABSA International: The Association for Biosafety and Biosecurity