Max Görlitz
Bio
Currently, I work as a Non-resident Fellow at Blueprint Biosecurity. We are investigating the potential utility of drug-free nasal sprays for respiratory infection prevention as part of the pandemic mitigation toolkit.
Previously, I worked at the European Commission's Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority (DG HERA), the EU equivalent of US BARDA. My focus was on R&D funding for innovative countermeasures for pandemic preparedness and response, especially diagnostics, PPE, medical devices, and (meta)genomic sequencing.
I have a master's degree in Genomic Medicine from the University of Oxford and did my thesis on the computational optimization of probe design for bait capture enrichment sequencing. Before that, I worked as a Research Affiliate at the MIT Media Lab and SecureBio, where we wrote a review paper on the safety of high-dose 200-235 nm far-UVC and its capability for pandemic mitigation. Before that, I was a student in clinical medicine at the Technical University of Munich.
I strongly believe we should be more ambitious about eradicating many infectious diseases.
Last updated: 2026-07-06
Email me at [email protected]
How others can help me
- Help me find a full-time job starting in ~October where I can learn a lot
- Give me anonymous feedback: https://www.admonymous.co/maxgoerlitz
- Chat with me about skilful living and personal growth
How I can help others
- Give insights about my path from med student → independent biosecurity research → full-time biosecurity research
- Discuss different takes on biosecurity issues
- Give learnings from organizing EA Munich.
- Besides that, I have some expertise in medicine, meditation & well-being, and effective learning techniques.
Posts 14
Comments83
Topic contributions10
I very much appreciate all the blog posts coming out from the Coefficient Giving biosecurity team at the moment. It is very helpful that you’re doing more public communication of your worldview and current priorities. The community now has better common knowledge.
This is, of course, very tempting, and sounds very exciting. It would be a glorious coincidence if, of all possible things I could be doing, the thing that is most intellectually interesting and fun and increases my status the most also happens to be the most impactful thing I could do with my life. Similarly, why is it that taking a high-paying, high-power job where the promise of impact is a vague sense of “influence” at the cost of progress on a difficult, high-risk, and concrete intervention is so appealing?
Reminds me of this classic: Beware surprising and suspicious convergence.
Very useful comment, thanks!
hedging against uncertainty: we're just very uncertain about what a future pandemic might look like and where it will come from
I fully agree with this; I think this was an implicit premise of mine that I failed to point out explicitly.
... though I think for it to work you have to also add a premise about the relative risk of substitution, right?
Great point that I actually haven't considered so far. I would need to think about this more before giving my opinion. It seems really context-dependent, though, and hard to determine with any confidence.
Also, the Maginot line analogy is cool; I hadn't seen that before. (I guess I really should read more of your report 🙂)
What a biosafe world looks like
Basically like "What Success Looks Like" (which is about transformative AI) but instead about what a world would look like that is really well protected from catastrophic pandemics.
It could be set in e.g. 2035, and describe what technologies and (political) mechanisms have been implemented to make the world "biosafe"—i.e. safe from global catastrophic biological risks.
I could even imagine versions of this that are a fictional story, maybe describing the life of someone living in that potential future.
I haven't tried it yet but I reckon a combination of DJI Mic Mini (or another microphone) and Granola AI on your phone could work really well since then you can also go for a walk. Might give it a go at the next EAG.