Biosecurity studies how to lower the chance of a pandemic and how to limit the damage once one starts. It covers outbreaks that begin in nature, pathogens that escape from laboratories and pathogens released on purpose. This guide follows the order of the BlueDot Impact course and uses only the vocabulary needed to read the references at the end.
How many people pandemics have killed
The 1918 flu killed tens of millions of people. COVID-19 deaths officially reported to the World Health Organization passed seven million, and estimates of the real number are much higher.
Figures for older pandemics are very uncertain, because most of the world kept no death records. The Our World in Data article in the reading list explains how these estimates are made.
Three sources of risk
A natural outbreak happens when a virus passes from animals to people. A laboratory accident happens when a pathogen escapes during research. A deliberate attack happens when someone spreads a pathogen to cause harm.
Several countries ran biological weapons programs in the twentieth century. The Soviet program continued in secret after the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972 banned these weapons. The convention still has no mechanism to check whether countries comply.
The role of biotechnology and AI
Reading, writing and editing DNA gets cheaper every year and requires less training. The tools used to develop vaccines and treatments also lower the skill needed to work with dangerous pathogens.
AI models that answer biology questions could help someone with bad intentions get through steps that used to take years of study. For this reason part of biosecurity work now happens at AI companies, with tests and safeguards in the models, and at DNA synthesis companies, which screen orders before producing them.
Four lines of defense
The BlueDot course splits the response into four stages, each with its own measures.
- Prevent
delay the first infection. This includes discouraging people who might cause harm, limiting access to dangerous knowledge and materials, adding safeguards to AI models and protecting research infrastructure.
- Detect
find the outbreak early. Surveillance systems can sequence genetic material from samples such as wastewater and find pathogens nobody was looking for. Cheap rapid tests help find individual cases.
- Withstand
slow transmission without relying on medicines. Examples include better masks and protective equipment, cleaner indoor air and measures that reduce contact between people.
- Combat
end the pandemic. That requires developing, testing, financing, manufacturing and distributing vaccines and treatments in far less time than today.
What is still missing
Many of these measures already exist on a small scale. Wastewater sequencing runs in some cities, some countries keep stockpiles of protective equipment, and vaccine platforms such as mRNA shortened development during COVID-19.
What is missing is scale and speed. Protecting the whole world would take surveillance in many more places, equipment stored before the next outbreak and factories able to produce vaccines within weeks.
Terms used in the field
- Pathogen
- a virus, bacterium or other agent that causes disease.
- Spillover
- when a pathogen passes from an animal to a human.
- Biosafety and biosecurity
- biosafety prevents accidents with pathogens, and biosecurity prevents their deliberate misuse.
- Metagenomic sequencing
- reading all the genetic material in a sample at once, which can reveal unknown pathogens.
- Non-pharmaceutical interventions
- measures that slow transmission without medicines, such as masks, ventilation and distancing.
- Medical countermeasures
- vaccines, treatments and tests used against a disease.
- Far-UVC
- ultraviolet light at a wavelength that can inactivate pathogens in the air of occupied rooms. It is still being studied.
- DNA synthesis screening
- checking orders for synthetic DNA to block sequences that could be used to build a dangerous pathogen.
Where to start reading
The course and the two history texts give an overview. The other three cover strategy and data.
To start
- Biosecurity BlueDot Impact · free course
The free course this guide follows. Six units on preventing, detecting and responding to pandemics, with weekly discussions led by specialists. No biology background required.
- What were the death tolls from pandemics in history? Saloni Dattani · Our World in Data · 2023 · article
How many people the largest pandemics killed and how uncertain each estimate is.
- Germ Warfare: A Very Graphic History Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense · 2019 · comic
The history of biological weapons told as a comic, from ancient sieges to twentieth-century programs.
To go deeper
- Pandemic prevention as fire-fighting Richard Williamson · Works in Progress · 2022 · essay
Compares pandemic defense with the history of fire safety, where deaths fell with building codes, alarms and sprinklers.
- Preventing catastrophic pandemics 80,000 Hours · problem profile
An overview of the problem and of careers in research, policy and technology that work on it.
- High-risk human-caused pathogen exposure events from 1975-2016 David Manheim and Gregory Lewis · F1000Research · 2022 · paper
A compiled list of laboratory accidents and other exposures to pathogens caused by people.
At ImpactUFSCar
We do not yet have a group dedicated to biorisk. The subject is close to our work on AI safety, and anyone who wants to study it with us can get in touch.
This guide follows the structure of the BlueDot Impact Biosecurity course. The text was written by ImpactUFSCar.