Cassidy Nelson
Joint mentorship with multiple mentors at CLTR: More information to follow
Projects
Research Direction: Biosecurity Policy
We welcome project proposals from candidates, and in particular are interested in projects involving mirror life research governance, synthetic nucleic acid screening policy, early warning systems and biosurveillance, AIxBio mitigations, defensive acceleration for biodefense, and deterrence and attribution capabilities. We will primarily supervise policy projects, but can also supervise the development of biosecurity tools for the policy space including those drawing on open-source intelligence for biosecurity problems. Some example projects include:
AI-enabled microbial forensics capability landscape. Review of recent AI-enabled predictive tools for characterising engineered biological agents and attributing lab-of-origin.
Synthetic nucleic acid screening: Policy paper on the benefits of international harmonisation of mandatory regulation using other industry comparisons.
AIxBio threat intelligence: Comparing UK and US approaches to cybersecurity datasharing with government and their relevance to frontier AI companies for AIxBio and CBRNe threats.
EU Biotech Act: Reviewing the draft regulation published in December 2025 to map coverage and gaps of AIxBio, synthetic nucleic acid screening and mirror life research governance.
The CWC applied to synthetic biology. Detailed assessment of whether and how Chemical Weapons Convention provisions could apply to synthetic biology threats.
OECD Synthetic Biology recommendation. Policy position paper on mirror life research governance, synthetic nucleic acid screening, and/or AIxbio provisions should be included.
Pandemic Preparedness Strategy. Review of the strengths and gaps of the UK's recent Pandemic Preparedness Strategy, and recommendations for the upcoming All Pandemic Hazards Bill.
Biosecurity data visualisation tool - Frontier Lab CBRN Commitment Tracker: Scrape and structure all published frontier AI lab safety frameworks on CBRN. Track each published version, diff over time, surface what's been added, changed, or removed. Output: live dashboard.
Biological Security Strategy implementation tracker: Dashboard tracker that pulls from public data sources updates on commitments and progress.
Bio
I am a physician-scientist leading the biosecurity policy team at the Centre for Long-Term Resilience where we work on preventing and mitigating extreme biological risks.
