• BIOSECURITY25 Years After Amerithrax: The Changing Landscape of Biosecurity

    By Aayushi Sharma and Ajey Lele

    The 2001 anthrax attacks in the US led to the emergence of biological terrorism as a public health, law enforcement, intelligence, and national security problem, highlighting the need for an integrated approach to addressing the threat. Advances in biotechnology, synthetic biology, and emerging technologies have defined the biological threat landscape over the past 25 years.

  • BIOSECURITYBuilding a Defense-in-Depth Biosecurity Strategy for the AI Era

    The convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and biology could introduce serious global health and national security risks. As capabilities continue to advance, AI-enabled biotechnology might lower the technical, operational, and motivational barriers to creating biological weapons. It might also enable high-consequence attacks involving enhanced or novel pathogens.

  • AI & BIOSECURITYAI‑Designed Viruses Are a Test of Whether Biosecurity Can Keep Pace

    By Tuck Seng Wong and Kang Lan Tee

    Scientists have crossed an important line in biological engineering. In a recent study, researchers used artificial intelligence to design complete sets of genetic instructions for bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria. These viruses were designed to infect bacteria rather than people, but even so, the experiment raises an important question: if AI becomes increasingly able to help design biological systems, are our safeguards developing fast enough?

  • BIOTERRORISMNew Vaccine Against a Highly Fatal Tropical Disease – and Potential Bioterror Weapon – Demonstrates Efficacy in Animal Studies

    Researchers tested a vaccine against the bacterium that causes melioidosis and found it was highly protective against the disease. The bacterium is so dangerous that it is categorized as a Tier 1 Select Agent of bioterrorism, and it can cause rapidly fatal pneumonia when inhaled in low doses. If aerosolized and unleashed in a terror attack, it could lead to widespread death.

  • BW & CWToxic Terrorism

    By Ajey Lele

    On 26 June 2026, during the Muharram procession in Mumbai, a man was arrested for allegedly distributing poisonous capsules to participants. This suspected terror plot was an attempt to ensure mass casualties amongst using a toxic substance. It is a timely reminder that national security today extends far beyond conventional terrorism.

  • DUAL-USE RESEARCHFirst Large-Scale Empirical Analysis of Dual-Use Research and Security Oversight

    Dual-use research refers to scientific research that has both legitimate civilian applications and potential security-sensitive applications. A new analysis of approximately 600,000 research papers reveals structural limits to single-country security oversight of dual-use research and identifies trade-offs that policymakers face when strengthening such oversight.

  • AGRICULTURAL SECURITYAgricultural Security Considerations for the U.S. Corn Belt

    A new report examines the agricultural security risks to crop production in the U.S. Corn Belt, the backbone of the United States’ food, feed, and biofuel industries. The report reviews key threats and mitigation strategies for bioresiliency.

  • AIAI Can Design and Run Thousands of Lab Experiments without Human Hands. Humanity Isn’t Ready for the New Risks This Brings to Biology

    By Stephen D. Turner

    What happens when the same capabilities operate outside those controls is a question that policy has not yet answered. Overreact, and talent and investment may move elsewhere while the technology continues advancing anyway. Underreact, and the risks of that technology could be exploited to cause real harm.

  • BIOTHREATSPick Your Poison: The Enduring Threat of Biological Toxins

    By Alex Kyabarongo and Lena Kroepke

    A summary of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense’s “Pick Your Poison: The Enduring Threat of Biological Toxins” at the Atlantic Council. 

  • BIODEFENSEPhysical Approaches to Civilian Biodefense

    Progress in biological sciences and technologies will offer more opportunities to improve human well-being in the coming decades, but this progress may also lower barriers that are blocking bad actors from engineering pathogens to cause destruction. We need to identify potential preparedness measures for challenging biological threats.

  • AI-ENABLED BIOWEAPONSGlobal Risk Index for AI-enabled Biological Tools

    Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the life sciences, accelerating breakthroughs in research, drug discovery and biotechnology. However, some of the AI tools that drive innovation can also be misused, posing significant dual-use risks.

  • RISKY BIOLOGICAL RESEARCHDefining Risk in Biological Research: Why Researchers Need Clearer Oversight Frameworks

    By Barbara Del Castello, Adeline Williams and John Tarangelo

    Policymakers and researchers need a consistent and transparent way to weigh the risks and benefits of risky biological research to facilitate review processes and oversight.

  • BIOSECURITYCritical Action Needed to Address Growing Biosecurity Risks

    A new report warns that biosecurity risks are increasing. Emerging technologies and other trends are making biological threats more numerous, frequent, and consequential. The report outlines how emerging biotechnology must itself be used to secure biology, akin to how software is required to secure software.

  • BIOSECURITYA View from the CT Foxhole: James Stack, Director, Great Plains Diagnostic Network

    By Don Rassler and Kristina Hummel

    There are multiple definitions of biosecurity, and oftentimes it intersects with definitions of biosafety. But if we look at biosecurity in the sense of the unintentional or intentional introduction of an organism, we have a long history on the plant side in terms of protecting food systems and natural plant systems. But 9/11 did bring a focus on the intentional side.

  • AIFiltered Data Stops Openly Available AI Models from Performing Dangerous Tasks

    Researchers have reported a major advance in safeguarding open-weight language models. By filtering out potentially harmful knowledge during training, the researchers were able to build models that resist subsequent malicious updates – especially valuable in sensitive domains such as biothreat research.