BEGIN:VCALENDAR PRODID:-//eluceo/ical//2.0/EN VERSION:2.0 CALSCALE:GREGORIAN BEGIN:VEVENT UID:192a7d0ae1e908d0ede48c5fc0276875 DTSTAMP:20260820T134524Z SUMMARY:Biosecurity in the Age of Engineering Biology: Imperial College Lon don UNGA 2026 Event DESCRIPTION:Biosecurity in the Age of Engineering Biology \n\n\n\nImperia l College London is convening a new Global Biosecurity Network of Excell ence\, a platform for action-focused\, science-led research and delivery o n the biological threats reshaping global health security. \nWe are ple ased to invite you to a high-level roundtable on the margins of the 2026 U nited Nations General Assembly and High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Preventi on\, Preparedness and Response\, focused on the development of an AI-drive n biosecurity response system.\nThe roundtable will bring together experts from science\, health\, frontier AI labs\, the biotech and life sciences industry\, funders\, policymakers from defence to health resilience\, and international organisations. A key aim is to bridge existing global health security and pandemic preparedness architecture and networks with frontie r work in engineering biology and AI\, connecting both to the surveillance \, response\, and coordination systems this new moment demands. \n\n\n\nT he challenge \n\nAdvances in engineering biology and artificial intellige nce are lowering the barriers to creating biological agents\, with both le gitimate and malicious applications. The systems that protect us today wer e built to catch naturally occurring outbreaks. They are not designed for a world in which biological threats can be deliberately engineered\, wheth er that means an altered pathogen\, a novel toxin\, or an agent unfamiliar enough to slip past existing detection tools. Closing that gap requires t wo things working together: the ability to design and test countermeasure s at speed\, and the intelligence to know when\, where\, and how to deploy them. No single institution\, government\, or company can build this alon e.\nThe discussion will be structured around four areas\, each intended to identify where partners in the room can contribute\, and where new coali tions need to form: \n\nRapid countermeasure design: How AI-driven biolo gical design could shrink the path from identifying a threat to having a validated response ready to deploy\, from years down to weeks. \nEarly w arning and threat intelligence: How we detect and make sense of unfamiliar biological signals early enough to act\, and how we tell a genuine emergi ng threat apart from noise. \nGetting the response right: How new counte rmeasures get tested and deployed responsibly for different types of th reats\, under real-world constraints of supply\, capacity\, and public tru st. \nGovernance and coordinated action: What frameworks and internationa l partnerships are needed to act with confidence before all the evidence i s in. \n\n\n\nFeatured participants\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Hugh Brady \, President\, Imperial College London\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nProfessor Karen Poli zzi\, Professor of Biotechnology\, Imperial College London\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n Professor Azra Ghani\, Chair in Infectious Disease Epidemiology\, Imperial College London\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAbout Biosecurity at Imperial\nBiosecurity in the age of engineering biology is an international issue. Effective res ponses require trusted partnerships between nations with aligned values\, complementary capabilities\, and shared commitment to open science. The Un ited Kingdom is precisely such a partner\, and Imperial College London sit s at the heart of the UK’s scientific leadership in this space with st rong links across the medical and life sciences spectrum including UKH SA\, WHO\, a network of world-leading hospitals.\nImperial was the first UK university to establish a dedicated centre for engineering biology (originally founded as a centre for synthetic biology). Furthermore\, we h ost world-leading researchers in infectious diseases and epidemiological m odelling who played a leading role internationally in the response to COVI D-19 as well as a wide range of other infectious disease threats (includin g influenza\, Ebola\, mpox and Zika).  Today\, we hold an unrivalled pos ition in the UK\, characterised by: \n\nThe strongest research and traini ng pipeline in the country across these domains\, spanning undergraduate\,  postgraduate and postdoctoral levels \nA truly multidisciplinary appro ach\, integrating life sciences\, medicine\, engineering and economics  \nAn established base for globally funded research\, that has brought in f unding from the national agencies of dozens of countries\, as well as from charities\, multinational companies and from major international philanth ropic donors and funds\nWorld-leading expertise in synthetic biology\, i nfectious disease research\, biomanufacturing\, epidemiology and AI\nDemon strated translational expertise both to rapidly bring countermeasure too ls to fruition and in providing policy support globally\nA vibrant transla tional ecosystem anchored at our White City Campus\, home to a growing clu ster of start-ups in both engineering biology and security\nThe London Bi ofoundry\, which is one of Europe’s premier automated biology platforms\ , purpose-built for rapid\, high-throughput biological design and testing\ n\n URL:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/212054/biosecurity-in-the-age-of-engi neering-biology-imperial-college-london-unga-2026-event/ DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20260921T140000 DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20260921T160000 LOCATION:Cornell Club New York\, 6 E 44th Street\, New York\, NY\, 10017\, United States END:VEVENT BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:America/New_York BEGIN:DAYLIGHT DTSTART:20260921T140000 TZNAME:EDT TZOFFSETTO:-0400 TZOFFSETFROM:-0400 END:DAYLIGHT END:VTIMEZONE END:VCALENDAR