Updates from organizations working to reduce Global Catastrophic Biological Risks 

This is an independent project spearheaded by Tessa Alexanian and Anemone Franz outside of our organizational affiliations. We hope to improve transparency, facilitate collaboration, and otherwise accelerate progress in our community.

Every few months, we’ll ask organizations that are doing impactful work to reduce global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRs) to share their current projects, recent publications, and any opportunities for collaboration.

What are GCBRs?

There are a few definitions floating around, but we’ll quote the 2017 paper Global Catastrophic Biological Risks: Toward a Working Definition (emphasis ours):

Events in which biological agents—whether naturally emerging or reemerging, deliberately created and released, or laboratory engineered and escaped—could lead to sudden, extraordinary, widespread disaster beyond the collective capability of national and international governments and the private sector to control.

We believe that this category of biological threats deserves special attention within the fields of biosecurity and pandemic preparedness.

Why these organizations?

We contacted organizations that we believe are doing impactful work to reduce GCBRs and that have framed their own efforts in the context of reducing catastrophic risk. These organizations by no means have an exclusive focus on GCBRs, and the list of organizations is not exhaustive. We hope to broaden our scope in future; let us know if you think we should reach out to any other organizations for updates!

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