Biosecurity & pandemicsBiosecurity
Managing biological risks and preparing humanity for possible future pandemics
Posts tagged Biosecurity
Quick takes
Biosecurity covers the procedures, practices and other measures used to manage risks from biological agents (e.g. viruses, bacteria) or their products (e.g. toxins).
The term "biosecurity" has different meanings in different contexts. As a few examples:
I made a video on pandemic prevention through wastewater monitoring, featuring @Jeff Kaufman 🔸 and @Will Bradshaw from SecureBio Detection.
It has been 2 years in the making (with several months-long breaks) and I'm very proud of it! Hope you enjoy it. More details here: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/gfRPh2RfAhLsBv37s/wastewater-monitoring-as-an-early-warning-for-pandemics-a
Tentative thesis: China is unlikely to accept a subordinate position in AI capabilities to the US, just as the US is unlikely to accept a subordinate position in AI capabilities to China or anyone else.
This thesis suggests that there are two likely paths for the future international AI (non)regulation:
1) a continuing race between the US and China, perhaps joined by some late entrants, possibly with some rules established (e.g. mutual ban on autonomous weapons or something like that), or
2) a “pause or stop deal” that will establish some sort of ceiling on capabilities, which will be equal for China and the US.
What I think is far less likely is a deal in which China would accept lower AI capabilities than the US.
I simply don’t see a good reason why Chinese leaders would accept subordinate position. They know that China has the ability to catch-up to the US in various technological domains, as evidenced by the fact that in, like, 1990, China was behind in more or less everything, and now they are pushing the technological frontier in many areas.
Some estimates floating around the web suggest that, if the US would stop AI development now, China could reach current US capabilities within months. That is maybe overly optimistic/pessimistic depending on where you stand, but I very much doubt that catch-up would take more than a decade. And Chinese government, being patriotic about the abilities of the Chinese nation, probably will not have an absurdly pessimistic estimate.
Moreover, the Chinese regime is in many ways oriented around this idea of catching up (this is a big difference between China and EU). It is a central plank of the official historical narrative of the People’s Republic of China (see for example preamble to their constitution: https://english.www.gov.cn/archive/lawsregulations/201911/20/content_WS5ed8856ec6d0b3f0e9499913.html) that the century between First Opium War and the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war in 1949 was the century of humiliation, during which various imperialist powers exploited China due to the fact that it was technologically backward country unable to stand up to them. I happen to think this narrative is largely correct, but even if it isn’t, what matters is that Chinese government believes it and is determined to never again allow China to be put in the position where a technologically superior power could walk over it.
This has some implications:
A) Since China is currently behind, any sort of “pause or stop deal” between the US and China would likely have to involve either the US stopping further development and allowing China to catch up, or the US somehow crippling its own capabilities to a current Chinese level. Of course, for either option, the US would have to place a lot of trust in the Chinese government.
B) As long as China is behind, export controls on hardware and other attempts to limit Chinese capabilities are at best of doubtful utility as a way to get to a "pause or stop" agreement. In fact, imho there are making a deal less likely. They antagonize Chinese leaders, make them even more paranoid and less inclined to a constructive agreement. But also, to the extent they are successful in limiting Chinese capabilities, they make it less likely to that the US government would agree to an equal deal, since that would mean sacrificing larger lead, which is harder to politically accept for the US. Perhaps this is a reason why nuclear arms treaties in the Cold war were agreed only after the USSR more or less caught up to US nuclear arsenal?
Now, attempts to limit Chinese capabilities can still be seen as useful if you think it is important for the US to “win” the competition, for example because there are reasons to believe US AI will be safer. Or because you think the world would be a better place if the US “wins”, even though both countries would develop similarly dangerous systems. Or of course if you think that the US victory would be preferable even if American AI would be more dangerous than Chinese AI.
Btw. for a well written snapshot of Chinese opinion/vibes, I recommend this: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/how-anthropic-became-chinas-goliath
With the large expected inflow of philanthropic capital, there has been a surge in interest in entrepreneurship among those who otherwise might not have pursued it. As we pursue promising new ideas, many ventures will fail. Some of these failures will be because the idea was not as good as it seemed, but many will fail because the entrepreneurs executed it poorly.
I'm concerned we will abandon good ideas due to poor execution.
Founders new and old should strive to make their successes and failures publicly visible (though these stories should be read critically given founder biases). More importantly, we should be skeptical of claims that an idea is bad based solely on the failure of one attempt, and we should be willing to pursue ideas more than once if we have a strong account for why the previous attempt(s) failed.
Please list any new funding opportunities you can think of here on the Forum? I feel like we might already be in the early ramp-up to significantly more EA aligned funding. At the same time, the Forum's overview over funding opportunities feels like it is quickly getting outdated. I think as things move quickly, coordination might become looser and new promising interventions are identified, it is helpful for people to have a good overview over available funding sources and their priorities.
I have heard on the grapevine there is already funding on several fronts that might not be very public. I am a little bit uncertain if perhaps it is better these sources remain anonymous. At the same time, I think there might be several promising EA projects that are not sufficiently visible to people influencing funding decisions.
Epistemic note: I am not listing these yet as I have not had time yet to verify how much they qualify as EA funding opportunities.
Here are a few recent developments I am considering listing on the funding opportunities page, but would like someone that knows these funds better to list them:
So... what's the general take on the hantavirus outbreak?
Consultancy Opportunities – Biological Threat Reduction 📢📢📢
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) is looking for two consultants to support the implementation of the Fortifying Institutional Resilience Against Biological Threats (FIRABioT) Project in Africa. Supported by Global Affairs Canada's Weapons Threat Reduction Program, this high-impact initiative aims to support WOAH Members in strengthening capacities to prevent, detect, prepare, respond and recover from biological threats. The project also supports the implementation of the Signature Initiative to Mitigate Biological Threats in Africa, an initiative of the Global Partnership to Prevent the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.
WOAH is looking for one consultant to work with anglophone countries and another to work with francophone countries.
📍 Base: Nairobi (remote work possible)
✈️ Travel: Regular missions across Africa
📅 Duration: 6 months (March–August 2026)
These consultants will work closely with WOAH regional and HQ teams to design, deliver, and report on an ambitious technical programme, including in-person workshops across WOAH Members in Africa.
Focus areas include:
• National contingency planning
• Risk communication
• Laboratory biological risk management
• Management of high-consequence agents and toxins
You’ll be work in collaboration with Veterinary Services and other agencies to strengthen institutional resilience against biological threats.
📌 Deadline to apply: 14 February 2026
👉 For full details and application guidelines, please click here:
Anglophone consultancy : https://rr-africa.woah.org/en/events/call-for-applications-consultant-for-biological-threat-reduction-and-emergency-preparedness-english-french-an-asset/
Francophone consultancy: https://rr-africa.woah.org/en/events/call-for-applications-consultant-for-biological-threat-reduction-and-emergency-preparedness-advanced-proficiency-in-french-is-mandatory/
According to someone I chatted to at a party (not normally the optimal way to identify top new cause areas!) fungi might be a worrying new source of pandemics because of climate change.
Apparently this is because thermal barriers prevented fungi from infecting humans, but because fungi are adapting to higher temperatures, they are now better able to overcome those barriers. This article has a bit more on this:
https://theecologist.org/2026/jan/06/age-fungi
Purportedly, this is even more scary than a pathogen you can catch from people, because you can catch this from the soil.
I suspect that if this were, in fact, the case, I would have heard about it sooner. Interested to hear comments from people who know more about it than me, or have more capacity than me to read up about it a bit.
Humans have actively worked against promoting the welfare of wild city rats throughout history. Aside from primates, they are some of the most closely related non-human animals to H. sapiens, yet we know very little about how they live outside of laboratory settings (i.e., often dystopian, prison-like conditions). In order to enhance their welfare in the wild and in laboratories, there is a huge need to develop and deploy technologies to study their behavior. Such studies would also benefit global human health and biosecurity efforts because rats can serve as vectors of disease, sources of infrastructural damage, and pose a threat to stored foods.
There are very few researchers working in this space across the globe, and I am one of the few (pre-PhD, looking for programs where I can complete my doctorate) who has the experience with + concern for rats and software/hardware/IoT development & design skills necessary to push this area of research further in a manner that embraces total harm-reduction (as opposed to eliminationist) thinking/strategies. Am I in the right place for starting conversation(s) on this topic? Should I repost this some other way?
Hopefully I'm posting this in the correct context + idea development status, it's my first post on the site. I found out about the potential for research funding opportunities last weekend while attending a conference at GWU Law School and figured it is worth a shot, given the sad state of affairs with research funding lately.