Resources

Collections of information and links on different topics related to biosecurity and pandemics. There are a lot of great resources out there and this should just be a starting point. Most links from the front page are not repeated here, especially recommended ones are the in the first section below or in bold. If you encounter a paywall, some say there are easy ways to get past them.

Contents

• Most important
• Geography specific
  • European Union
  • Denmark
  • Finland
  • Norway
  • Sweden
• Threats
  • AI and Biosecurity (AIxBio)
  • Information Hazards
  • Biological Weapons and the BWC
  • Dual-Use and Gain of Function
  • Synthetic Biology
  • Antimicrobial Resistance
  • Bird flu
  • Mirror life
• Solutions
  • Preparedness
  • Detection, Testing, Diagnostics and Sequencing
  • Pharmaceuticals / Vaccines
  • Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
  • Filters
  • Far-UVC
• Podcast lists
• Books
• Want more?

Most Important

• Reading lists
  • Biosecurity Reading+ List by Tessa
  • Bakerlee biosecurity reading list
  • GCBR reading list/resources by Greg Lewis
  • Aron’s Resource hub and Review on Key Aspects of Biosecurity
  • Biosecurity Early Career Resources by Ryan Teo

• Biosecurity cause area profiles
  • 80,000 Hours – Preventing catastrophic pandemics
    • Biorisk research, strategy, and policy
  • Effective Altruism Sweden – Catastrophic Pandemics
  • NTI – Global Catastrophic Biological Risks
  • Biosecurity as an EA Cause Area
  • Emerging Technology Policy Careers – Biosecurity policy (US-oriented)
  • Open Philantropy – Biosecurity & Pandemic Preparedness
    • Research and Development to Decrease Biosecurity Risks from Viral Pathogens
    • Biosecurity
  • Giving What We Can – Improving biosecurity and pandemic preparedness
  • Effective Altruism Durham – Biosecurity

• 80,000 Hours Podcast: #164 – Kevin Esvelt on cults that want to kill everyone, stealth vs wildfire pandemics, and how he felt inventing gene drives (2023)
• 80,000 Hours Anonymous answers
  • What are the biggest misconceptions about biosecurity and pandemic risk?
  • What are the best ways to fight the next pandemic?
  • How can we manage infohazards in biosecurity?
  • Could advances in AI supercharge biorisk?

• Projects/Ideas (mostly from the EA Forum):
  • Concrete Biosecurity Projects (some of which could be big)
  • List of Lists of Concrete Biosecurity Project Ideas
  • Five Tractable Biosecurity Projects You Could Start Tomorrow
  • List of Short-Term (<15 hours) Biosecurity Projects to Test Your Fit
  • Project Ideas in Biosecurity for EAs
  • New ideas for mitigating biotechnology misuse
  • 80,000 Hours – Policy and research ideas to reduce existential risk
  • CE: Rigorously prioritizing the top health security (biosecurity) ideas
  • Big project example: Fønix Bio Shelters

Geography specific 🌍

European Union projects 🇪🇺

• Centre for Future Generations – Safeguarding biotech’s wonders
  • Biotechnology and the next pandemic part 1 and part 2
• Joint Action TERROR: Strengthened preparedness and response to biological and chemical terror attacks
• Joint Action on Antimicrobial Resistance and Healthcare-Associated Infections (EU-JAMRAI)
• European partnership for pandemic preparedness (BEREADY4Pandemics)
• UNITED4Surveillance
• EU-Wastewater Integrated Surveillance for Public Health
  • The European Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard

Denmark specific 🇩🇰

• Statens Serum Institut (Danish site)
• Centre for Biosecurity and Biopreparedness
  • Biosecurity legislation

Finland specific 🇫🇮

• Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare – Centre for Biothreat Preparedness (in Finnish or Swedish)
  • Finnish Biosecurity Network (in Finnish or Swedish)
  • Bioturvalainsäädäntö / Biosäkerhets- och bioskyddslagstiftning (not available in English)
• Committee for the Future launches three initiatives on COVID-19 consequences
• Identification of best practices for biodiversity recovery and public health interventions to prevent future epidemics and pandemics
• Resistant Cities: Urban Planning as Means for Pandemic Prevention (RECIPE) (in Finnish)
• Defence Forces Logistics Command / Puolustusvoimien logistiikkalaitos – Tutkimus (Research, not available in English but in Swedish)
• Podcast: Sotilaslääketieteessä varaudutaan pahimpaan – influenssapandemiat, isorokko ja pernarutto isoja biouhkia (49 mins)

Norway specific 🇳🇴

• Norwegian Institute of Public Health – Division of Infection Control (in Norwegian)
  • Infection Control and Preparedness (in Norwegian)
  • Infection Control and Vaccines (in Norwegian)
  • Centre for antimicrobial resistance (in Norwegian)
• DMP/NOMA’s role in supply chain security and preparedness (in Norwegian)
• Langsikt – Existential threats
  • Publications (filter by Biotechnology and Pandemics)
    • Vitenskapen har ikke gitt gode nok svar på spørsmålet om pandemiens opphav
    • Antimicrobial resistance – Taking action on pull incentives in Norway
• NRK – Speilvendte bakterier: – Kanskje verre enn noen utfordring vi har møtt

Sweden specific 🇸🇪

• Folkhälsomyndigheten – Pandemiberedskap (brief page in English)
  • Folkhälsomyndigheten föreslår nationellt IT-system för Sveriges pandemiberedskap
  • Bättre beredskap för storskalig testning och smittspårning krävs för nästa pandemi
  • Säkra Biorisker / Securing Biorisks (self-assessment tool)
• SBU – Icke-medicinska åtgärder för att minska smittspridning vid pandemier
• Vetenskapsrådet – National research programme in viruses and pandemics
  • Strategic research agenda: National research programme in viruses and pandemics
• SciLifeLab – Pandemic Laboratory Preparedness
• Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
  • Addressing the challenges posed by chemical and biological weapons: Intensive online introductory course for students of technical disciplines (2024)
• Swedish Society for Virology
• Pandemifonden (English Release statement)
• The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies at Lund University – Greyzone Genomics
• Forum för Beredskapsdiagnostik (FBD) / Swedish Forum for Biopreparedness Diagnostics (2014 pamphlet)
  • 2017 report, 2022 report (in Swedish including English abstract)
• Institutet för framtidsstudier – pandemi
  • Svensk pandemiberedskap i organisationsetisk belysning – Empirisk analys och åtgärdsförslag för framtida pandemier av Falkenström (2021)
• Dagens Samhälle – Är Sverige rustat mot biologiska vapen? (2019)

Threats

• SpillOver: Viral Risk Ranking
• CEPI – The Viral Most Wanted
• Characteristics of Microbes Most Likely to Cause Pandemics and Global Catastrophes (2019)
• Prions: a threat to health security and the need for effective medical countermeasures by Lee (2023)
• Think Global Health – Smallpox Biosecurity in a New Era of Technology (2024)
• Talk: Pandemic Pathogens (at EA Global: San Francisco 2018)
• Talk: Assessing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (at EA Global: San Francisco 2018)
• Vox – Why experts are terrified of a human-made pandemic — and what we can do to stop it (2022)
• History of pandemics:
  • The Bulletin – An illustrated history of the world’s deadliest epidemics, from ancient Rome to Covid-19
  • What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? from Our World in Data
  • Timeline of biorisk

AI and Biosecurity (AIxBio)

• List of AI x Biosecurity Resources
• 80,000 Hours – Anonymous answers: could advances in AI supercharge biorisk?
• Vox – ChatGPT could make bioterrorism horrifyingly easy (2023)
• Managing Risks from AI-Enabled Biological Tools
• Report: RAND – The Operational Risks of AI in Large-Scale Biological Attacks: A Red-Team Approach
• CLTR – Understanding risks at the intersection of AI and bio (2023), and The near-term impact of AI on biological misuse (2024)
• OpenAI – Building an early warning system for LLM-aided biological threat creation (2024)
• The Bulletin – What will be the impact of AI on the bioweapons treaty? (2024)
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – AI Increasing Biorisk

Information Hazards

• Information Hazards in Biotechnology
• Info hazard guidance for biosecurity discussions by Chris Bakerlee and Tessa Alexanian (updated May 2024)
• 80,000 Hours Anonymous answers – How can we manage infohazards in biosecurity?
• Forum: What are information hazards?
• Forum: We summarized the top info hazard articles and made a prioritized reading list
• Bioinfohazards
• Biosecurity Fundamentals – Teaching With Analogies: Harry Potter and the Biotechnology Information Hazards
• Information Hazards: A Typology of Potential Harms from Knowledge (on Information Hazards in general)
• Protocols and risks: when less is more
• Examples of Successful Selective Disclosure in the Life Sciences by Tessa
• The challenge of misinformation during disease outbreaks
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Information Hazards and Their Implications

Biological Weapons and the BWC

• UNODA – Biological Weapons
  • The Biological Weapons Convention: An Introduction (updated April 2025)
  • History of the Biological Weapons Convention
• NTI – The Biological Weapons Convention
• Geneva Centre for Security Policy – The Biological Weapons Convention: Challenges and Opportunities (2024)
• Wikipedia: Biological Weapons Convention
• Twenty-first century perspectives on the Biological Weapon Convention: Continued relevance or toothless paper tiger by Cross and Klotz (2020)
• BWC implementation map
• Arms Control Association – Chemical and Biological Weapons Status at a Glance (reviewed 2024)
• Reflections on the Biological Weapons Convention
• UK Government’s approach to emerging infectious diseases and bioweapons by Nelson et al. (2019)
• Reflective Altruism – Epistemics Part 2 – Enforcing the Biological Weapons Convention (2023)
• Forum: “A Creepy Feeling”: Nixon’s Decision to Disavow Biological Weapons (2022)
• Forum: A Rising Tide Threatens Barriers to Bioweapons (2023)
• What is the pandemic treaty and what would it do?
• Aum Shinrikyo: Insights Into How Terrorists Develop Biological and Chemical Weapons (pdf)
• The Bulletin – False Russian claims hijacked the biological weapons treaty. Here’s how to reclaim it
  • Additional articles
• Blog: What do historical statistics teach us about the accidental release of pandemic bioweapons?
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)

Dual-Use and Gain of Function

• WHO – What is dual-use research of concern? (2020)
• WHO – Emerging technologies and dual-use concerns: a horizon scan for global public health
• Research Involving Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens
• YouTube: Prof. Marc Lipsitch: Risks and Benefits of Gain-of-Function Experiments in Potentially Pandemic Pathogens
• Report: CSET – Understanding the Global Gain-of-Function Research Landscape by Schuerger et al.
• Dual-Use and Infectious Disease Research by Evans (2020)
• Ethical and Philosophical Consideration of the Dual-use Dilemma in the Biological Sciences by Miller and Selgelid (2007)
• Manipulating viruses and risking pandemics is too dangerous. It’s time to stop.
• Biosecurity in an age of open science by Smith and Sandbrink (2022)
• Gain-Of-Function Experiments At Boston University Create A Deadly New Covid-19 Virus. Who Thought This Was A Good Idea?
• Rapid Proliferation of Pandemic Research: Implications for Dual-Use Risks
• Vox – Why some labs work on making viruses deadlier — and why they should stop
• Vox – Can we stop the next pandemic by seeking out deadly viruses in the wild?
• FAS – Science and Security: The Moratorium on H5N1 “Gain-of-Function” Experiments (2013)
• The Bulletin – Horsepox synthesis: A case of the unilateralist’s curse? by Gregory Lewis (2018)
• Biosecurity risks associated with vaccine platform technologies by Sandbrink and Koblentz (2021)
• The Ethical Issues of Dual-Use and the Life Sciences by Bezuidenhout and Rappert (2012)
• NTI – International Bio Funders Compact
• Dual-Use Quickscan of the Dutch Biosecurity Office
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Dual Use Research and Gain of Function Research and Stopping Gain of Function Research

Synthetic Biology

• Engineered pathogens: the opportunities, risks and challenges by Cassidy Nelson (2019)
• The Convergence of AI and Synthetic Biology: The Looming Deluge (2024)
• RAND – Securing commercial nucleic acid synthesis (2024)
• NTI – Preventing the Misuse of DNA Synthesis Technology
• IFP – Securing Benchtop DNA Synthesizers
• SecureDNA – Safeguarding DNA synthesis
• Talk: Preparing for a World in which Thousands Can Unleash New Pandemics by Kevin Esvelt (at EAGxBoston 2022)
• Talk: Screening all DNA synthesis and reliably detecting stealth pandemics by Kevin Esvelt (at EAG Boston 2023)
• Vox – It’s time to close the gene synthesis loophole that could lead to a human-made pandemic (2023)
• Evo 2 Can Design Entire Genomes (2025)
• What rough beast? Synthetic biology, uncertainty, and the future of biosecurity (2009)
• Biology’s Brave New World: The Promise and Perils of the Synbio Revolution (2013)
• Moratorium on Research Intended To Create Novel Potential Pandemic Pathogens (2014)
• On DNA and Transistors (2016)
• Book: Biosecurity in the Age of Synthetic Biology by Leyma Pérez De Haro (2024)

Antimicrobial Resistance

• ARMoR, Alliance for Reducing Microbial Resistance
• ECDC – Country visit to Sweden to discuss antimicrobial resistance issues based on a One Health approach

Bird flu (Avian influenza, H5N1)

• Bird Flu Risk Dashboard
• Vox – No one wants to think about pandemics. But bird flu doesn’t care (2024)
• Vox – Is it time to worry about bird flu? (2025)
• The Unnatural History of Bird Flu (2025)
• Blog: H5N1: Much More Than You Wanted To Know (2025)
• Forum: Five ways to stop a bird->mink->human H5N1 pandemic (2023)

Mirror life

• Confronting risks of mirror life (2024)
• Technical Report on Mirror Bacteria: Feasibility and Risks (2024)
• Mirror Biology Dialogues Fund, facilitating the mirror life discussion by a series of events throughout 2025 and 2026.
• Scientists urge halt to research on creating synthetic “mirror” bacteria that could evade human immunity, disrupt ecosystems (2024)
• Vox – A whole new thing that could end the world: Why we won’t cause a mirror bacteria apocalypse — thanks to science. (2025)

Solutions

Preparedness

• Geneva Paper – Securing civilization against catastrophic pandemics (2023)
• Works in Progress – Pandemic prevention as fire-fighting (2022)
• Geneva Paper by Kevin Esvelt – Delay, Detect, Defend: Preparing for a Future in which Thousands Can Release New Pandemics
• NTI – Strengthening Global Systems to Prevent and Respond to High-Consequence Biological Threats
• NTI – Preventing Global Catastrophic Biological Risks
• Report: CHS – Technologies to Address: Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (2022)
• FLI – Benefits & Risks of Biotechnology
• Forum: A Framework for Technical Progress on Biosecurity
• Report: Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense – The Apollo Program for Biodefense: Winning the Race Against Biological Threats (US-oriented, 2021)
  • Forum: Notes on Apollo report on biodefense (2022)
• Asimov Press – Defense-Forward Biosecurity (2024)
• Calculating the Costs and Benefits of Advance Preparations for Future Pandemics
• World Bank – From Panic and Neglect to Investing in Health Security: Financing Pandemic Preparedness at a National Level
• Global Health Security Index (YouTube introduction):
  • Sweden🇸🇪, Denmark🇩🇰, Finland🇫🇮, Norway🇳🇴 and Iceland🇮🇸
• ECDC – Public Health Emergency Preparedness Assessments
• ECDC – Why is pandemic preparedness planning important?
• Blog: Envisioning a world immune to global catastrophic biological risks (2020)
• Inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against COVID-19
• TIME – The Best Global Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic, 1 Year Later (2020-2021)
• All for one and one for all: Why a pandemic preparedness league of nations? by Dey, Cheng and Tan (2020)
• Global Catastrophic Biological Risks: Toward a Working Definition
• An overview of standards in biosafety and biosecurity
• WHO – Infection prevention and control
  • Disease Outbreak News (DONs)
  • The WHO Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence
  • A brief guide to emerging infectious diseases and zoonoses
• See also Syllabus for SERI BITS Week 6 – Policy, supply chains, and global coordination and Week 7 – Frontiers of pandemic prevention technology

Detection, Testing, Diagnostics and Sequencing 🧬

• ProMED: 24/7 early warning system for emerging infectious diseases worldwide
• If a Global Catastrophic Biological Risk Materializes, at What Stage Will We Recognize It?
• CSR – Toward a Global Pathogen Early Warning System (2021)
  • Pathogen Early Warning: A Progress Report & Path Forward (2022)
• A Global Early Warning System for Pandemics: Mobilizing Surveillance for Emerging Pathogens by Milken Institute (2021)
• The Scientist – How an Early Warning Radar Could Prevent Future Pandemics (2023)
• Nucleic Acid Observatory – Scaling Our Pilot Early-Warning System (2025)
• Research in the time of a pandemic: SENTINEL- A proactive, early warning system to pre-empt future pandemics
• The Case for Altruism in Institutional Diagnostic Testing
• Testing in a Pandemic — Improving Access, Coordination, and Prioritization
• Ethical challenges in pathogen sequencing: a systematic scoping review
• Field-deployable viral diagnostics using CRISPR-Cas13
• Wastewater sequencing reveals community and variant dynamics of the collective human virome by Tisza et al. (2023)
• Meta-genomic analysis of toilet waste from long distance flights; a step towards global surveillance of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance by Nordahl Petersen et al. (2015)
• Wastewater and public health: the potential of wastewater surveillance for monitoring COVID-19 by Farkas et al. (2020)
• A Global Nucleic Acid Observatory for Biodefense and Planetary Health by The Nucleic Acid Observatory Consortium
• Sequencing
  • Nucleic Acid Observatory – Detecting Genetically Engineered Viruses With Metagenomic Sequencing (2024)
  • FoHM – Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) and Bioinformatics
  • Genomic Medicine Sweden
  • Pandemic Preparedness Capabilities – Development of a targeted metagenomic NGS platform for diagnostics and epidemiological surveillance of viral pandemic threats
• Epidemic Calculator
• Book: Mathematical Tools for Understanding Infectious Disease Dynamics
• YouTube: CrashCourse Outbreak Science
• See also Syllabus for SERI BITS Week 1 – Sequencing and diagnostics and Week 2 – Infectious disease surveillance
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Surveillance and Early detection

Pharmaceuticals 💊 / Vaccines 💉

• YouTube: Manufacturing medical countermeasures against catastrophic biothreats
• DrugVirus.Info, a data portal for broad-spectrum antivirals (BSAs) and BSA-containing combinations (BCCs)
• Running ahead of Pandemics: Achieving In-Advance Antiviral Drugs
• CEPI – Vaccine technology
  • CEPI 2.0 and the 100 Days Mission
• Promoting versatile vaccine development for emerging pandemics
• The Quest for Universal Flu Vaccines
• The state inoculates: vaccines as soft power by Pannu & Barry (2021)
• Understanding modern-day vaccines: what you need to know by Vetter et al. (2017)
• mRNA vaccines – a new era in vaccinology by Pardi et al. (2018)
• See also Syllabus for SERI BITS Week 4 – Vaccines and antivirals
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Vaccines and Medical countermeasures

Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 😷

• The Atlantic – The Masks We’ll Wear in the Next Pandemic (2022)
• Report: Blueprint Biosecurity – Towards a Theory of Pandemic-Proof PPE (2024)
• Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis by Chu (2020)
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

From the Syllabus for SERI BITS Week 5 – Personal protective equipment:

• YouTube: Physics of N95 Masks (6 mins) and Impact on disease prevalence (7 mins)
  • Droplet or aerosol?
  • WIRED – The Physics of the N95 Face Mask
• PAPR (wiki), HEPA filters (wiki)
  • Literature review: PAPR vs the rest
  • Literature review: PPE safety and design features
  • Recharging, comfort
  • PPE supply chains
  • Economics and impact of PPE stockpile

Filters 💨

• EPA – What is a HEPA filter?: HEPA is a type of pleated mechanical air filter. It is an acronym for “high efficiency particulate air [filter]”. This type of air filter can theoretically remove at least 99.97% of dust, pollen, mold and bacteria.
• Wikipedia: Rosenthal Box
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – HVAC System Improvements

Far-UVC ☄️

• CDC – About Germicidal Ultraviolet (GUV)
• Wikipedia: Ultraviolet germicidal irradiation
• Vox – Ultraviolet light can kill almost all the viruses in a room. Why isn’t it everywhere? (2024)
• Vox – The future to fighting airborne viruses is in…lamps? (2025)
• A summary on UVC lamps – Aron
• High Impact Engineers Podcast – Far-UVC for clean indoor air with Vivian Belenky
• First International Congress on Far-UVC Science & Technology
• Forum: Are Far-UVC Interventions Overhyped? [Founders Pledge]
• Report: 1Day sooner – Air Safety to Combat Global Catastrophic Biorisk
• Report: Blueprint Biosecurity – Blueprint for Far-UVC (2025 preprint)
• UV Light Technology – UV Dosage Required to Kill Microorganisms
• Landmand og tidligere udenrigsminister klar til at bekæmpe svinepest med UV-lamper (in Danish, 2022)
• See also Syllabus for SERI BITS Week 3 – Far-UVC and indoor air quality
• See also Aron’s Resource Hub – Sterilizing: UV-C lamps

Scientific articles on Far-UVC

• Far UV-C radiation: An emerging tool for pandemic control by Blatchey et al. (2022)
• Far-UVC light: A new tool to control the spread of airborne-mediated microbial diseases by Welch et al. (2018)
• Far-UVC (222 nm) efficiently inactivates an airborne pathogen in a room-sized chamber by Eadie et al. (2022)
• The impact of far-UVC radiation (200–230 nm) on pathogens, cells, skin, and eyes – a collection and analysis of a hundred years of data by Hessling et al. (2021)
• Disinfecting the air with far-ultraviolet light by Bender (2022)
• Comparison of disinfection performance of UVC-LED and conventional upper-room UVGI systems by Nunayon, Zhang and Lai (2019)
• The History of Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation for Air Disinfection by Reed (2010)
• Inactivation of bacterial spores by UV-C light by Gayán (2013)
  • Spore Resistance Properties by Setlow (2014)

Podcast lists 🎙️

80,000 Hours Biosecurity Podcast Episodes

• All episodes on the 80,000 Hours website
• #4 – Howie Lempel on why we aren’t worried enough about the next pandemic — and specifically what we can do to stop it. 
• #12 – Beth Cameron fought Ebola for the White House. Now she works to stop something even worse. – 80,000 Hours 
• #27 – The careers and policies that can prevent global catastrophic biological risks, according to world-leading health security expert Dr Tom Inglesby
• #65 – Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins on 8 years of combating WMD terrorism
• #70 – Dr Cassidy Nelson on the twelve best ways to stop the next pandemic (and limit COVID-19)
• Emergency episode: Rob & Howie on the menace of COVID-19, and what both governments & individuals might do to help
• #74 – Dr Greg Lewis on COVID-19 and reducing global catastrophic biological risks
• #76 – Tara Kirk Sell on COVID-19 misinformation, who’s done well and badly, and what we should reopen first
• #77 – Marc Lipsitch on whether we’re winning or losing against COVID-19
• #84 – Shruti Rajagopalan on what India did to stop COVID-19 and how well it worked
• #93 – Andy Weber on rendering bioweapons obsolete and ending the new nuclear arms race
• #103 – Max Roser on building the world’s first great source of COVID-19 data at Our World in Data
• #104 – Dr Pardis Sabeti on the Sentinel system for detecting and stopping pandemics
• #112 – Carl Shulman on the common-sense case for existential risk work and its practical implications
• #114 – Maha Rehman on working with governments to rapidly deliver masks to millions of people
• #116 – Luisa Rodriguez on why global catastrophes seem unlikely to kill us all
• #118 – Jaime Yassif on safeguarding bioscience to prevent catastrophic lab accidents and bioweapons development
• #121 – Matthew Yglesias on avoiding the pundit’s fallacy and how much military intervention can be used for good
• #131 – Lewis Dartnell on getting humanity to bounce back faster in a post-apocalyptic world
• #164 – Kevin Esvelt on cults that want to kill everyone, stealth vs wildfire pandemics, and how he felt inventing gene drives
• #171 – Alison Young on how top labs have jeopardised public health with repeated biosafety failures
• #188 – Matt Clancy on whether science is good
• #189 – Rachel Glennerster on how “market shaping” could help solve climate change, pandemics, and other global problems

Hear This Idea Biosecurity Podcast Episodes

• Hear This Idea All episodes
• #49 – Ajay Karpur on Metagenomic Sequencing
• #51 – Kevin Esvelt and Jonas Sandbrink on Risks from Biological Research
• #53 – Tessa Alexanian and Janvi Ahuja on Synthethic Biology and GCBRs
• #55 – Jassi Pannu and Joshua Monrad on Pandemic Preparedness
• #72 – Richard Bruns on Indoor Air Quality
• #74 – Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley on Barriers to Bioweapons

Books 📚

• Books on infectious disease (in Swedish, but most books are in English):
• How to Prevent the Next Pandemic by Bill Gates (2022)
• Medical Aspects of Biological Warfare by US Army Medical Department Center and School
• The Soviet Biological Weapons Program by Leitenberg
• The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and its Dangerous Legacy by David E. Hoffman (2009)
• Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs by Osterholm & Olshaker (2017)
• Bioterrorism and Biocrimes by Carus
• Bioterror and Biowarfare: A Beginner’s Guide by Malcolm Dando (2006)
• Biosecurity Dilemmas: Dreaded Diseases, Ethical Responses, and the Health of Nations by Christian Enemark (2017)
• Biological Threats in the 21st Century: The Politics, People, Science and Historical Roots by Filippa Lentzos (2016)
• Synthetic Biology: Safety, Security, and Promise by Kwik Gronvall (2016)
• Barriers to Bioweapons: The Challenges of Expertise and Organization for Weapons Development by Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley (Forum: Notes)
• Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World by Alibek and Handelman
• Essentials of Biological Security by Shang
• Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic by Scott Gottlieb (2021)
• Ending Epidemics: A History of Escape from Contagion by Richard Conniff (2023)
• Pandora’s Gamble: Lab Leaks, Pandemics, and a World at Risk by Alison Young (2023)
• Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present by Frank M. Snowden (2019)
• Routledge Handbook of Global Health Security edited By Simon Rushton and Jeremy Youde (2015)

Want more?

Wow, congratulations on making it all the way down here! If you have suggestions, send them in by the contact form. If you want even more resources I suggest looking at:

1. The Biosecurity Reading Lists
   • Biosecurity Reading+ List by Tessa
   • Bakerlee biosecurity reading list
   • GCBR reading list/resources by Greg Lewis
   • Aron’s Resource hub and Review on Key Aspects of Biosecurity
2. Syllabi from biosecurity courses, including:
   • Biosecurity Fundamentals, 8-week course syllabus, live course cancelled
   • Introduction to Biosecurity, a 4-Week Online Course, syllabus by Lin Bowker-Lonnecker
   • SERI Biosecurity Interventions Technical Seminar (BITS) Syllabus (launch post)
3. EA Forum posts tagged Biosecurity (top posts)
4. The episode notes of the podcasts above
5. The books above
6. Additional resources from the following sites:
   • Benefits & Risks of Biotechnology – Recommended References