Giving Compass' Take:

• In this Effective Altruism post, Open Philanthropy Project program officer Claire Zabel discusses the status of the group's biosecurity work, whether it's training future innovators in the field or funding the next possible breakthrough.

• Much of what's discussed here looks at the big picture, but we must also not forget more clear and present dangers in the field of pandemic preventions.

• Here's why the Ebola outbreak shows that global health is only as strong as the weakest link.

I'm a program officer in global catastrophic risks. I spend about half my time in biosecurity right now. Specifically, when I work on biosecurity, I'm thinking about it in the context of global catastrophic biological risks, by which we mean, in case you haven't heard that term before, risks that could, if they occurred, have the potential to derail or destroy human civilization in the long-term. And so when we think about biosecurity, we're thinking about it in the context of our efforts to make sure the long-term future is good, as opposed to focusing primarily on efforts to help people now. Open Phil does more to help people now through our programs in USpolicy, as well as global health and development ...

The first thing I want to talk about was our project in early-career funding. Our idea was to fund grad programs and internships in fields or in organizations related to biosecurity, with the goal of helping to get people who are relatively value aligned with our view on biosecurity, who are interested in global catastrophic biological risks in particular, have an easier time moving into that field. We also wanted to help them make the transition potentially more quickly. Give them more time to do work without having as much a pressure from other needs, like financial constraints.

Read the full article about advances in biosecurity by Claire Zabel at effectivealtruism.org.