Commission seeks Office Manager
The Commission is looking for an Office Manager who is organized, professional, detail-oriented, highly responsive, a proactive planner and able to quickly shift from one task to another. Excellent written and oral communication skills are required. Please review the position description for more information. If interested, please send your résumé to admin@biodefensecommission.org
News HighlightBipartisan Commission on Biodefense Receives $5.2 Million Grant from Open Philanthropy
The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense today announced a $5.2 million grant from Open Philanthropy to support the Commission’s work to better defend the nation against a wide range of biological incidents ranging from pandemics and zoonotic diseases to biological terrorism and warfare. This is the fifth grant from Open Philanthropy, whose critical support of the Commission’s work now totals more than $13 million.
More23 August, 2022
Commission announces new Deputy Director position to lead biodefense policy and research efforts
The new Deputy Director will support the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense by leading biodefense policy analysis and research about the prevention, deterrence, preparedness for, surveillance and detection of, response to, attribution of, recovery from, and mitigation of naturally occurring, accidentally released, and intentionally introduced biological threats. This is a senior, high-visibility position and the successful candidate is expected to serve as a strategic planner, manager, supervisor and substantive expert, reporting directly to the Executive Director and serving as the Acting Executive Director when necessary. The pandemic of 2020 has shined a spotlight on the Commission’s work and this new Deputy Director joins at an exciting time of high-intensity focus and rapid-growth. If you are interested, please send your resume to admin@biodefensecommission.org.
Watch the Commission’s May 3, 2022 meeting, “When Borders Don’t Matter: Defending the Homeland Against Biological Threats”, which provided the Commission with a better understanding of: (1) biological incidents that affect homeland and national security; (2) roles and responsibilities of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in addressing biological threats; and (3) opportunities to enhance national biodefense.
Commission
September 20, 2022
Dr. Asha M. George Named to Inaugural ‘Homeland’s Hottest 50’ List by Homeland Security Today
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 20, 2022) – Dr. Asha M. George, Executive Director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, has been named by Homeland Security Today as one of their Homeland’s Hottest 50 professionals as part of the publication’s efforts to “bring attention and hope to the people burning through challenges and stoking solutions to the Nation’s toughest… threats and vulnerabilities.”
September 20, 2022
Homeland Security Today Hot 50: Asha George
Long before COVID-19 introduced lockdowns and social distancing to Americans’ everyday lexicon, the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense had sounded the alarm about the risks of putting pandemic preparedness on the back burner – along with other biological threats from security of biological agents to bioweapons attacks. Dr. Asha M. George has led the prescient and critical commission as executive director since January 2018, when the group was known as the Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense. She was co-director when the study panel released its landmark A National Blueprint for Biodefense: Major Reform Needed to Optimize Efforts; in the commission’s 2020 follow-up report, Biodefense in Crisis: Immediate Action Needed to Address National Vulnerabilities, George’s team determined that only 3 of the 87 action items in the Blueprint for Biodefense had been completed. “The nation remains at catastrophic biological risk,” she told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in February. “…This moment calls for bold action and clear vision to address national biological crises.”
September 19, 2022
Biological weapons threat evolving, experts say
“ISIS and al-Qaida in different times have expressed interest, but given alternatives, what we've seen is they moved to other means for conducting their dastardly violence,” Parachini said. However, what allied intelligence services know about can be assumed to be about one-sixth of what is actually happening, cautioned Asha George, executive director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense and a former military intelligence officer and paratrooper.
September 7, 2022
Updates on pandemic preparedness and current biological threats
Ambika Bumb, deputy executive director of the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense, discusses the current landscape of biological threats, including Covid-19, monkeypox, “traces of polio,” avian influenza, African swine fever and biological weapons development, as well as government pandemic preparedness efforts and her organization’s recommendations
September 1, 2022
Commission Applauds Tangible Progress on Pandemic Preparedness by Biden Administration; Pushes for Remaining Gaps to be Filled
WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 1, 2022) – In a new status report out today, the Biden Administration provides a look at progress made towards implementing its 2021 American Pandemic Preparedness Plan (AP3), which reflects many of the recommendations previously made by the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. The report details both substantial progress and continuing gaps in the Nation’s ability to prepare for, and respond to, biological threats.
August 31, 2022
America’s land-grant universities uniquely positioned to fight today’s biological threats
This year marks the 160th anniversary of the establishment of the first land-grant university by President Abraham Lincoln. President Lincoln valued higher education and recognized the role that dedicated institutions could play in supporting food, animals, and plants, while also ensuring that citizens with modest means could obtain a university education.
