Giving Compass' Take:

• Open Philanthropy Project explores how we can use the power of scientific research to guard ourselves against outbreaks of deadly infectious diseases.

• Are we funding enough R&D in the area of pandemics and biosecurity? Those in the health space should examine the strategy of biotech and other possible protections discussed here. Millions of lives could be at stake.

• Here's more on how donors can make an impact in this area, and where those research dollars should go.

We think natural, and to a greater extent engineered, pathogens have the potential to cause global catastrophes. We expect that as biotechnology advances, the risk of dangerous outbreaks will increase. Our impression is that viral pathogens seem especially likely to contribute to catastrophic pandemics because they have the potential to be highly virulent and transmissible compared to other pathogen types, and there are very few broad-spectrum therapeutics for use against pathogenic viral outbreaks and they have undesirable side effects.

How could the problem eventually be solved or substantially alleviated? We believe that if a subset of the following abilities/resources were developed, the risk of a globally catastrophic pandemic would be substantially reduced:

  • A better selection of well-stocked, broad-spectrum antiviral compounds with low potential for development of resistance
  • Ability to confer immunity against a novel pathogen in fewer than 100 days
  • Widespread implementation of intrinsic biocontainment technologies that can reliably contain viral pathogens in the lab without impairing research
  • Improved countermeasures for non-viral conventional pathogens
  • Rapid, inexpensive, point-of-care diagnostics for all known pathogens
  • Inexpensive, ubiquitous metagenomic sequencing
  • Targeted countermeasures for the most dangerous viral pathogens

Read the full article about R&D to decrease biosecurity risks at Open Philanthropy Project.