The best way to limit damage from a pandemic is to prevent it from happening in the first place.

In this unit you’ll explore interventions to prevent engineered pandemics, either through accidental release from a lab or a deliberate biological attack. We choose this focus because there is evidence that biorisk posed by advances in AI and synthetic biology have the potential to be substantial, are changing rapidly and there are tractable interventions to address them.

We don’t explore the prevention of naturally-occurring pandemics (e.g. disease spillover from animals to humans) in this section. If you want to learn more about this, [this paper](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01312-y) is a good place to start. The material in later units on detection and response apply to all pandemic threats, regardless of origin.

We'll start this unit by exploring what AI models can and cannot currently do, how we try to measure this and how rapidly these capabilities are improving.


AI x Biosecurity

Beyond making AI models themselves safer, there are things we can do to prevent dangerous pathogens being developed and released into the world, either accidentally or on purpose.

We’ll explore the three following interventions. You will read a short resource on each, before picking one intervention to dive deeper on.

**Nucleic acid synthesis screening**

_Nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) are the genetic ‘instructions’ that make us who we are. They are also what defines all viruses, bacteria and other pathogens. A bad actor could come up with a dangerous DNA sequence on a computer, but it would need to be ‘printed’ (synthesised) to cause harm in the real world. How can we screen DNA orders to guard this interface between the digital and physical worlds?_

**The Biological Weapons Convention**

_The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is the international treaty that prohibits nation states from developing biological weapons programmes. How can we strengthen this treaty such that we don’t return to the large-scale bioweapons programmes of the 20th Century?_

**Governance of risky biological research**

_There can be benefits to doing research with dangerous pathogens. Trying to design vaccines or treatments for malaria, HIV or TB would be difficult without the relevant virus! However there may be research on engineered pathogens where the benefits do not outweigh the risks (e.g. of a lab leak or novel information that could assist a bioterrorist). Key terms you’ll see here are ‘Gain-of-function’ (GoF) research, ‘Dual-Use Research of Concern’ (DURC) and ‘Pathogens with Enhanced Pandemic Potential’ (PEPP)._


Prevention overview

Prevention deep-dive

Pick 1 of the following 4 interventions to dive deeper into. We've given you some resources on the following pages as a starting point.

- **Option 1: AI safeguards**
- **Option 2: DNA synthesis screening**
- **Option 3: The Biological Weapons Convention**
- **Option 4: Governance of risky biological research**

Aim to answer the following questions:
- What are the intended goals of this intervention?
- What is the current state of this intervention, and to what extent is it achieving its goals?
- What are the most critical holes in this intervention?
- What are they key challenges to implementing a more robust version of this intervention, and how could you overcome them?

You will bring the results of your research to share in your group discussion.


Option 1: AI safeguards

Option 2: DNA synthesis screening

Option 3: The Biological Weapons Convention

Option 4: Governance of risky biological research


Biosecurity

Examine upstream interventions that stop threats before they emerge: AI safeguards, DNA synthesis screening, the Biological Weapons Convention, lab biosafety standards, and governance of risky research.

Preventing Engineered Pandemics

Building biodefences is both urgent and achievable: pandemics have killed millions, AI and synthetic biology are creating new threats, but a radically more pandemic-proof world is possible.

Building a Pandemic-Proof World

Learn how metagenomic sequencing can detect novel pathogens, how to rapidly characterise emerging threats, and how swift containment can stop transmission before widespread outbreaks.

Detecting Early Infections

Discover pathogen-agnostic defences deployable within hours: next-generation PPE, far-UVC air treatment, and biohardening strategies that protect people before we know what we're facing.

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions

Explore how to accelerate vaccine development, and how broad-spectrum antivirals can treat multiple threats before pathogen-specific treatments exist.

Rapid Medical Countermeasures

Map the biosecurity landscape and identify where your specific skills can contribute: organisations hiring across policy and technology, concrete projects seeking talent, and pathways into the field.

Biosecurity

AI x Biosecurity

Resources (1 hr)