Expertise Biosecurity
Jaime Yassif, PhD serves a consultant to NTI, providing senior counsel to the NTI | bio team, having stepped down from her role as NTI | bio vice president at the end of 2025.
Prior to this, Yassif served as a Program Officer at the Open Philanthropy Project, where she led the initiative on Biosecurity and Pandemic Preparedness. In this role, she recommended and managed approximately $40 million in biosecurity grants, which rebuilt the field and supported work in several key areas, including: development of new biosecurity programming at several leading think tanks; cultivation of new talent through biosecurity leadership development programs; initiation of new biosecurity work in China and India; establishment of the Global Health Security Index; development of the Clade X tabletop exercise; and the emergence of a new discussion about global catastrophic biological risks.
Previously, Yassif was a Science and Technology Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Defense, where she focused on oversight of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and East Asia security issues. During this period, she also worked on the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) at the Department of Health and Human Services, where she helped lay the groundwork for the WHO Joint External Evaluations and the GHSA Steering Group.
Yassif’s previous experience includes work with Connecting Organizations for Regional Disease Surveillance, Chatham House, NTI, the Federation of American Scientists and the Tsinghua University Institute for International Studies.
She holds a Biophysics PhD from UC Berkeley, an MA in Science and Security from the King’s College London War Studies Department, and a BA in Biology from Swarthmore College.
The AIxBio field stands at a critical juncture where rapid capability advances are outpacing governance frameworks and safety measures. The next 18 months will likely prove pivotal in determining whether voluntary safety practices by AI companies, emerging evaluation frameworks, and international coordination efforts can keep pace with technological development.
AIxBio capabilities hold immense promise—but they also introduce unprecedented risks. The exploitation of AIxBio capabilities for harm is a plausible near-term risk—and the time for action is now. NTI | bio offers actionable recommendations for governments, industry leaders, and philanthropic organizations to prevent catastrophic misuse.
Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) States Parties have a critical window of opportunity to take concrete steps toward enhancing transparency and building confidence in compliance with the norm against biological weapons development.
The convergence of artificial intelligence and the life sciences is reshaping what’s possible in biology, delivering major advances–ranging from accelerating vaccine discovery to advancing new tools for mitigating the effects of climate change–and new risks. NTI | bio’s AIxBio Horizon Scan looks ahead to where AIxBio capabilities are headed over the coming years.
A growing number of the world’s leading experts in health security and the life sciences are warning that unfettered open access to biological data could help AI design dangerous pathogens and are calling for safeguards on high-risk data to prevent misuse of AIxBio tools. Their warnings represent growing momentum behind an idea that NTI has championed: using managed access as a tool to strengthen biosecurity and safeguard rapidly advancing AIxBio capabilities.
The Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) entered into force 50 years ago, becoming the first multilateral disarmament treaty to ban the production of an entire category of weapons. As the world marks this anniversary, we reflect on the BWC’s importance and outline a path forward to strengthen its effectiveness.
Strengthening international capabilities to uphold the norm against bioweapons development and use.
Facilitating international governance to reduce biosecurity risks at the convergence of AI and the life sciences.
Strengthening AI governance to prevent misuse of AI-enabled tools for engineering living systems
Incorporating biosecurity reviews into bioscience and biotechnology funding processes.
Past Project Establishing stronger norms and practices to prevent accidents, misuse, and other adverse outcomes of life science research
Past Project Rapidly assessing origins of high-consequence global biological events
Past Project Establishing an international Common Mechanism for DNA Synthesis Screening
Past Project Safeguarding modern bioscience and biotechnology so it can advance and flourish safely and responsibly
Preventing global catastrophic biological risks (GCBRS)
Advances in biotechnology outpace national governments’ ability to provide needed oversight to prevent accidents or deliberate misuse of dangerous biological agents.
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