The Africa Health Security Index
The Index documents continent-wide gains across laboratory systems, biosurveillance, biosecurity and biosafety, manufacturing, and emergency response.
The Index documents continent-wide gains across laboratory systems, biosurveillance, biosecurity and biosafety, manufacturing, and emergency response.
Since the AIxBio Horizon Scan Winter 2025-2026 published in March 2026, there has been steady, incremental progress across AI-enabled biological tools. Protein design tools have continued to improve, agentic coding tools have matured in ways that lower barriers to computational biology, and commercial AI companies are making significant investments in the life sciences.
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.
China Arms Control and Disarmament Association (CACDA) and Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) Joint Statement on Shared Priorities for Strengthened Biosecurity & Responsible AI-Biotechnology Innovation
Managed access will be critical for reducing biosecurity risks related to the misuse of biological AI tools. By working to develop best practices for each element of this framework—risk levels, tiered access, and practices to verify legitimacy—developers of biological AI tools and the broader life sciences community can reduce risks while maintaining the benefits of these tools.
Funders play a key role in shaping how life science research is conducted. This new framework—developed collaboratively by a diverse group of internationally recognized experts—helps funders identify proposals that may require additional biosafety or biosecurity review and supports risk-mitigation efforts.
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.
Amid a combination of economic slowdown, reductions in official development assistance, rising biological threats, and climate change’s disproportionate impact on Africa, leaders and experts call for data-driven tools to guide strategic health security investments.
The 2025 Next Generation for Biosecurity Competition Winning Paper
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.
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