Our repository collects around 10–20 examples of biosecurity statements and practices from biological design tools and AI models. We grouped them based on how different developers are approaching biosecurity and dual-use risk. Users would be able to get a quick glimpse at how the current landscape looks like.
You can think of it as a map of how the field is (and isn’t yet) talking about biosecurity risks and safety.
Who is it for?
If you are a developer working on computational biology tools and know that dual-use risks exist, but are not sure how to discuss or address them - this is for you. You can think of this repository as a reference for publishing your own biosecurity statements, whether those are for your own users or for the general public.
How did we make it?
We started by looking for public statements, journal articles and practices from organisations building AI biological design tools. We then sorted and tagged them, thematically categorising them based on whether they:
acknowledge dual-use risk
how they managed access
whether they referenced established ethical standards, and
methods of evaluating risk
After getting feedback from Tessa and Max (thank you both so much!), we added more categories, such as the following, to make the repository more useful and user-friendly.
how users can interact with the tool or model
whether users nee to pay to access the tool/specific features
tool subcategories
What do we hope to get out of this?
We hope that our efforts can help to:
Establish shared norms for mitigating biological design tool risks
Give new developers some concrete examples, templates and language to start from/borrow
Nudge the field towards more transparent and standardised biosecurity practices
How do I use it and do you have an example?
The first tab provides an overview of all included tools and their corresponding categories.
The second tab includes exact wording used in the original biosecurity statements, including the paragraphs we referenced. You can see how organisations have phrased things.
Let's have a look at an example. Based on the Repository (last updated in July 2025), you are able to see that the AlphaFold 3 tool is developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs. It is hosted on a secure server, has no paywall, with user authentication required for access. It can be considered a protein design tool, small biomolecule design tool and has pathogen property prediction functionalities.
Based on our analysis, the organisations behind AlphaFold 3 have undertaken the following biosecurity actions: publishing a statement acknowledging dual-use risk , engaged experts in their risk assessment, conducted evaluations for dual-use risk and held community consultations.
A section below details a list of categories and values used in the repository, for those who are interested.
Feedback welcome :)
If you know developers or researchers who might find this useful, please share it with them! :) And if you have any feedback, ideas for new categories or know of relevant tools we’ve missed, we would love to hear from you :)
Acknowledgements:
Team: Shiying He, PT Nhean
Conceptualisation and feedback: Tessa Alexanian and Max Langenkamp
Origin of the author/developer’s host institution, not nationality
Organization
To separate from model name
User’s interaction with the model
Choose ≥1 value
Local execution: running the model directly on a user’s device or local infrastructure, won’t require external servers or internet access.
API access: accessing the model through web-based platform, usually hosted by the developer or a third party (e.g. querying a pathogen prediction model via cloud-based API)
Secure server: hosting and operating the model on a controlled server with strong security and access restrictions to limit unauthorized or unsafe uses (e.g requiring user authentication and monitoring)
Not reported: interactions with model are unclear due to model being released to a small group of scientists for testing (e.g. Google AI co-scientist)
Paywall
Choose 1 value
Yes, with free trials
Yes, no free trials
Yes, but with a free version
No
Not reported: presence of paywall is unclear due to model being released to a small group of scientists for testing (e.g. Google AI co-scientist)
Access Management
Choose ≥1 value
Authentication: verify user identity before granting access
Open weights: model parameters are publicly available for download and use
Open source: model code is publicly accessible and modifiable
Protein design tools: tools that can predict the sequence of proteins with specified structural and/or functional properties (e.g. binding with a given target).
Example user input: 3D protein structure
Output: Amino acid sequences
Small biomolecule design tools: Tools that can predict molecular structures with specific profiles (e.g. generating a drug that provokes a desired biological response and maintains acceptable pharmacokinetic properties)
Example user input: ligand structure, target molecule structure or class, and desired property
Output: molecular structure
Pathogen property prediction: tools that can predict or detect features of a pathogen such as propensity for zoonotic spillover, host tropism, likelihood of infecting humans, virulence, etc.
Example user input: genome sequences
Output: zoonotic spillover prediction score or classification (e.g. high risk)
Host-pathogen interaction prediction tools: tools that can predict the protein-protein interactions between a given host and pathogenic agent (e.g. predicting likelihood of antibody escape for viral mutations, exploitation of host mechanisms, or the virus’ entry mechanism into host cells).
Example user input: host protein sequences, viral protein sequences
Output: Likely interactions between host and viral proteins
Viral vector design tools: tools that can predict the amino acid sequences of virus capsids with the aim of optimizing them as delivery vectors (e.g. capable of assembling and packaging their own genomes, low immunogenicity)
Example user input: target capsid amino acid segment for mutation
Output: amino acid sequences
Immunological system modelling: tools that artificially replicate a component of the human immune system with the aim of predicting immune responses (e.g. predicting T-cell receptor epitope recognition)
Example user input: amino acid sequence of TCR CDR3 region and the epitope
Output: likely TCR recognition of an epitope COVID 19 clinical outcome prediction
Experimental design/simulation and autonomous tools: tools that are able to generate and simulate designs given a predefined objective, and predict experimental outcomes. Tools that are able to conduct experiments (including physical tests, modelling, or data mining) without human intervention.
Example user input: experimental workflow and variables, and laboratory automation equipment
Output: optimized methods or variables, simulated experimental data, or experimental data
Biosecurity Actions
Choose ≥1 value(s)
Statement acknowledging dual-use risk: a formal recognition that their tools could be misused for harmful biological purposes (e.g. a disclaimer noting potential misuse in a model card for a protein design tool, or ethics statement).
Expert engagement: involving biosafety, bioethics, and AI experts in the development and review processes (e.g. forming an external advisory board, qualitative interviews with experts to ensure safe use cases).
Curation of training data: synthetic data, or training data undergoing a filtering process to limit biological data that can enable dangerous capabilities (e.g. excluding pathogen virulence factors from a genomic training dataset).
Evaluation for dual-use risk: assessing models or tools for their potential misuse before release (e.g. red teaming exercises on a biological design tool, or adopting frontier evaluation frameworks)
Adoption or development of governance frameworks: applying internal policies or aligning with external standards to ensure safe development (e.g. adopting the WHO guidance on dual-use research, or create a lab-specific AI-biosafety protocol)
Community consultations: Forums, engagements, discussions or dialogues with potential users and/or stakeholders. (e.g. Alphafold 3: "Building on the external consultations we carried out for AlphaFold 2, we’ve now engaged with more than 50 domain experts, in addition to specialist third parties, across biosecurity, research and industry, to understand the capabilities of successive AlphaFold models and any potential risks. We also participated in community-wide forums and discussions ahead of AlphaFold 3’s launch.")
E.g. Co-Scientist’s trusted tester program to gather feedback from researchers using the tool
Provision of recommendations: Provides recommendations for future work, safeguards, mitigation strategies.
Publication of evaluation tests and/or results: provides additional details on the methodology of evaluations conducted, benchmarks used and/or results of evaluations
