BiosecurityA few weeksStarter
History of biosecurity project ideas
History is full of biosecurity lessons: policies that backfired, quarantines that worked, and what nuclear governance can teach us.
Reading & writingView project
BiosecurityPhilosophyA weekendStarterFree
Biosecurity before the year 1000: a history mini-essay
How did ancient and medieval societies protect themselves from plague? Research one historical practice (quarantine, isolation, trade rules) and draw a lesson for today.
Download PDFReading & writing
Why it matters
History shows which measures worked, which backfired, and why people trusted or resisted them. It is an ideal entry point for historians and humanities students.
Output: A 1,500-word essay with sources.
Steps
0 of 5 done-
Pick one practice and place
1 hrChoose a specific example of disease control before the year 1000 (or later, if you prefer). Narrow is better than broad.
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Find good sources
2–3 hrUse your library’s history databases. Prefer historians’ work over popular summaries, and note where sources disagree.
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Describe what happened
2 hrWho decided, who complied, what it cost, and whether it seemed to work.
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Draw a careful lesson
1 hrWhat carries over to modern pandemics, and what is different? Avoid over-claiming.
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Edit and share
1 hrCut it to the strongest version and share it with your group or on a blog.
All steps done
Share what you made, then try another project. The PDF version has room for notes.
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Further reading
- List of lists of concrete biosecurity project ideas (opens in a new tab)Idea listTessa Alexanian.
- Concrete biosecurity projects (some of which could be big) (opens in a new tab)Idea listLarger, organisation-sized projects.
- BlueDot: Biosecurity course (opens in a new tab)CourseFree 30-hour course. No biology background required.
- A hundred project ideas in biosecurity (opens in a new tab)Idea listHatta and Bazarragchaa, 2025. Aimed at independent, part-time researchers.
- Navigating dual-use projects in biosecurity (opens in a new tab)ReadingBlueDot. Read before starting anything sensitive.
Related mentored projects
- AI Consciousness: Research and Public Writing (opens in a new tab)SPARMaria Avramidou · Independent
- Making unlearning stick in genomic foundation models (opens in a new tab)SPARIlias Georgakopoulos-Soares · UT Austin
- Identifying function-relevant signatures in protein models for biosecurity screening (opens in a new tab)SPARIsha Harris, Gary Abel · Fourth Eon Biosecurity Institute / Fourth Eon Biosecurity Institute; the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security