Biosecurity is no longer a niche concern confined to laboratories: it is becoming a central challenge for science, policy, and society. How can we harness advances in life sciences while anticipating emerging biological threats and preventing misuse?
Biological technologies are changing how we detect, engineer, and respond to living systems. As advances in biotechnology and AI accelerate, they create new opportunities to protect societies from biological threats – while also raising difficult questions about misuse, governance, and responsibility. The same developments that can improve preparedness, strengthen disease surveillance, and enable more effective responses to outbreaks may also generate new vulnerabilities if they are misapplied, poorly governed, or released without sufficient oversight.
Biosecurity is a broad and evolving field. It can refer to preventing the deliberate misuse of biology, managing dual-use research, strengthening public health preparedness, securing laboratories and biological materials, or anticipating future risks from emerging technologies such as mirror life and engineered genomes. These meanings often overlap, but they also point to distinct communities, priorities, and forms of expertise. Understanding biosecurity therefore requires not only scientific and technical knowledge, but also attention to policy, ethics, international security, and public health. The seminar will introduce participants to this diversity of perspectives and explore how societies can navigate the opportunities and risks created by rapid progress in the life sciences. The seminar will explore these tensions through several concrete areas:
• Public health intelligence: how modern data processing, open-source information, and international coordination can support earlier detection of epidemics and pandemics, faster risk assessment, and more timely evidence-based responses.
• International Preparedness for Biological and Chemical Weapons Investigations: the role of the Spiez Laboratory within the UN Secretary-General’s Mechanism (UNSGM), and its contribution to international cooperation, technical capacity-building, and coordinated responses to the alleged use of biological and chemical weapons.
• Molecular sensing and threat detection: how new sensing technologies can help detect and analyze biological and other security-relevant threats, while also raising questions about surveillance, deployment, access, and responsible use.
• Genome engineering and synthetic biology: how engineered genomes and emerging possibilities such as mirror life could expand the capabilities of biotechnology, while also creating new challenges for biosafety, containment, and biosecurity.
• Emerging biological threats policy: how governments and policy organizations are preparing for risks such as medical countermeasure fragility, new biological capabilities, and the changing offence–defense balance in biology.
• AI in dual-use biological research: how AI-enabled tools may accelerate discovery, improve preparedness, support monitoring, and strengthen biological defense, while also potentially lowering technical barriers to misuse.
No prior expertise in biology, security studies, or public health is required. The seminar aims to provide an accessible but rigorous introduction to biosecurity, while encouraging interdisciplinary exchange. Throughout the day, participants will be invited to reflect on their own questions and concerns, reassess them in light of the discussions, and, for those interested, explore opportunities for further engagement in the field.
Bringing together perspectives from the World Health Organization, Spiez Laboratory, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, the University of Oxford, and biosecurity policy practice — with four speakers also being Johns Hopkins Emerging Leaders in Biosecurity — the seminar will ask how societies can benefit from rapid progress in the life sciences while reducing the risks that these same advances may create.
Location: EPFL campus, CM 1 104
Program:
- 09:45–10:00 — Welcome coffee
- 10:00–10:15 — Welcoming words, quick presentation round, and framing of the seminar
- 10:15–10:30 — Introduction to biosecurity and its variety of meanings
- 10:30–10:55 — Expectation round in small groups
- 10:55–11:00 — Short break
- 11:00–11:30 — Dual-Use Life Sciences Research and International Preparedness for Biological Weapons Investigations: The Swiss Case
- 11:30–12:00 — From Outbreak to Action: Lessons from Health Emergency Response Across the Globe
- 12:00–13:30 — Seated lunch
- 13:45–14:15 — Rapid Biological Threat Detection in Field Operations
- 14:15–14:45 — From Lab to Parliament: Translating Biotechnology Expertise into Policy
- 14:45–15:15 — Active break: BSL-3 biosecurity presentation
- 15:15–15:45 — Our ability to build entire genomes and alter the genetic code of life: Opportunities and Threats
- 15:45–16:30 — Closing discussion
- 16:30–17:00 — How to take it from here? Opportunities for further involvement
- Open-ended — Informal closing mingle with pastries and refreshments
Speakers:
Valentin Borgeat is a Technical Specialist and BSL-2/BSL-3 Biosafety Officer at the McKinney Lab at EPFL. His research focuses on antibiotic resistance of bacterial urinary tract infections and tuberculosis.
Raquel Medialdea Carrera is an Epidemiologist at the World Health Organization’s Hub for Pandemic and Epidemic Intelligence in Berlin. She has a range of experiences supporting responses to various epidemics and outbreaks, including Ebola, Zika, Chikungunya, and Dengue.
Paul-Enguerrand Fady is a Senior Biosecurity Policy Manager at the Center for Long-Term Resilience and also works for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology of the UK government. He works on emerging biological threats, e.g.mirror life, medical countermeasure resilience, and AI-enabled tools designed to strengthen biological defense.
Cedric Invernizzi is Head of the NBC Arms Control Division at Spiez Laboratory. His work focuses on biological weapons arms control, dual-use governance, Biological Weapons Convention implementation, and international efforts to strengthen biosecurity and laboratory capacity.
Raffael Schumann is a Post-Doctoral Researcher based at the University of Oxford. He works on genome engineering and synthetic biology, fields whose rapid technological advances raise pressing biosecurity questions, including around mirror life.
Jordan Wynn is a Research Scientist at MIT Lincoln Laboratory. She focuses on designing and testing molecular sensors to detect and analyze a range of threats, including biological ones, in support of military applications.
Languages: English
Organisation: Raffael Schumann and Matteo Titus, Swiss Study Foundation
Administration: Nathalie Ellington, Swiss Study Foundation
Timing: Monday, 19th of October 2026, 9:45-17:00 at EPFL, CM 1 104
Target audience: Swiss Study Foundation beneficiaries from all disciplines, no prior expertise in biology, security studies, or public health is required.
Preparation: Selected preparatory readings will be circulated in advance.
Number of participants: TBD
Sign-up deadline: Wednesday, September 30th
