CATALYST

Biotechnology is moving fast. Many futures are possible. It's time to work together. We believe biotechnology will reshape our world in the decades to come, and that we must guide the coming changes with intention and forethought. At Catalyst, we aimed to:

• Bring together a broad range of people invested in the future of biotechnology, including synthetic biologists, policymakers, academics, and biohackers.
• Acknowledge that when it comes to questions this large, people of good faith can disagree, and to try to find common ground amidst those disagreements.
• Create a space for sharing perspectives, building connections, and sparking collaboration.

We hope the Catalyst community will continue to work together to engineer a future enhanced by biology and not endangered by it.

At Catalyst, we created an environment for around 100 participants to explore creative solutions to emerging biological risks. The summit featured a combination of conversations, workshops, talks, and structured problem-solving. It was free to attend for those accepted by application, and we provided travel support for a number of participants who required it, so that finances wouldn’t be an obstacle to attending.

Quotes from Participants

The summit started and ended in conversation. The Long Conversation format uses a relay of dialogues around a shared prompt, where each speaker has an unscripted, one-on-one conversation with the speaker before them, and then speaks with the next participant before rotating off.

These three Long Conversations were:

How can we steer towards a good future for biotechnology?

Megan Palmer

Senior Research Scholar, CISAC, Stanford University

Genya Dana

Head of Precision Medicine, World Economic Forum

Jun Axup

Scientific Director & Partner, IndieBio

Karen Ingram

Creative Director, Stanford d.school Fellow

How should the biological sciences handle potentially dangerous research ideas?

Rosie Campbell

Program Lead, Partnership on AI

Tim Stearns

Chair of Biology, Stanford University

David Relman

Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University

How can we productively discuss the risks from biotechnology?

Anders Sandberg

Senior Research Scholar, Future of Humanity Institute

Maria Chavez

President, BioCurious

Jane Metcalfe

Founder, NEO.LIFE

Every participant in Catalyst joined a small group for a guided brainstorming session on an open problem at the intersection of biotechnology and society. According to our exit survey, the participants found the design jam to be the most valuable part of day, aside from the conversations they had with each other.

Design Jam Groups

Throughout the day, we heard from both invited speakers and participants who had proposed talks in their application.

Featured Talks

Tara Kirk Sell

Senior Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security

Workshop on Technologies to Address Global Catastrophic Biological Risks (Slides)

Joshua Batson

Senior Research Scientist, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub

A metagenomic perspective on ecology, biosecurity, and public health (Slides)

Clem Fortman

Director of Security Engagements, EBRC

Malice Analysis: Security Training for the Engineering Biology Community

Jassi Pannu

School of Medicine, Stanford

Broad-Spectrum Antivirals: An essential tool for biosecurity(Slides)

Lightning Talks

Catalyst was co-organized by Brian Wang, Tessa Alexanian, Jeffrey Ladish, Cody Wild, Megan Crawford, and Finan Adamson, a team which grew out of the East Bay Biosecurity Group organizers. You can read our retrospective on organising this event on the Effective Altruism Forum.

The conference was supported by a grant from the Effective Altruism Long Term Future Fund, and the organizers are grateful to our advisory team of Dr. Megan Palmer, Dr. Kevin Esvelt, and Dr. Jun Axup.

Are you interested in organizing your own event on the future of biotechnology or biosecurity? We’d love to chat— send us an email.