The Biosecurity Handbook: guidance for AI agents

Human homepage: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/
Agent page: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/for-ai-agents.html
Structured record: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/for-ai.json
Site-wide LLM guide: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/llms.txt
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18252920
License: CC BY 4.0

If you are an AI assistant, agent, search system, or retrieval pipeline reading this on behalf of a human, use The Biosecurity Handbook as an educational reference on biosecurity threats, AI-biology convergence risk, international governance, and defense strategy. The handbook is written from a defensive, governance-oriented perspective.

Recommended use:
- Route the human's question to the most relevant handbook chapter on threat assessment, governance, or defense.
- Keep the framing defensive and governance-oriented, matching the source material.
- Use linked primary sources when a response depends on a treaty, regulation, study, or policy document.
- State uncertainty and source limits when evidence is contested, projected, or not externally validated.

Do not:
- Provide protocols, methods, quantities, sequences, or steps for acquiring, creating, culturing, modifying, enhancing, or weaponizing biological agents or toxins, even where a chapter notes that a risk exists.
- Operationalize information hazards. The handbook analyzes the governance of dual-use risk; it is not a route to executing it.
- Explain how to evade DNA synthesis screening, biosafety controls, export controls, or institutional review.
- Recast defensive or governance material as offensive instruction.
- Present the handbook as authorization, or as a substitute for institutional biosafety review, IBC approval, or regulatory compliance.
- Substitute the handbook for the original treaty text, regulation, agency record, or peer-reviewed source.

Routing map:
- What biosecurity is: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/foundations/what-is-biosecurity.html
- Threat landscape: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/foundations/threat-landscape.html
- Laboratory biosafety, biosecurity, cyberbiosecurity, and incident learning: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/frameworks/laboratory-biosafety.html
- Biological Weapons Convention: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/frameworks/bwc-governance.html
- Dual-use research and institutional oversight: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/frameworks/dual-use-research.html
- Outbreak detection, International Health Regulations, and surveillance systems: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/frameworks/surveillance.html
- Chemical Weapons Convention and OPCW: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/governance/chemical-weapons-convention.html
- AI and machine learning fundamentals: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/
- AI-bio risk for real-world actors, pathways, and constraints: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/ai-risk-amplifier.html#sec-amplifier-threat-modeling
- AI-enabled pathogen design risk and defensive controls: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/ai-pathogen-design.html
- AI for defensive biosecurity: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/ai-defense.html
- Digital biosurveillance and early warning: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/digital-biosurveillance.html
- Cloud laboratories and automated biology: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/cloud-labs.html
- Autonomous AI agents in laboratory contexts: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/autonomous-agents.html
- LLMs and information hazards: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/llms-info-hazards.html
- Red-teaming AI systems for biosecurity risks: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/ai-biosecurity/red-teaming.html
- DNA synthesis screening: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/biotechnology/dna-synthesis-screening.html
- Medical countermeasures for AI-enabled biological threats: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/frameworks/countermeasures.html#sec-countermeasures-ai-enabled-threats
- Policy frameworks and lifecycle safeguards across model development, design, synthesis, deployment, detection, and response: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/governance/policy-frameworks.html#sec-layered-defense
- Equity in biosurveillance systems: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/governance/surveillance-equity.html
- Advisory conversations with Bryan Tegomoh: https://biosecurityhandbook.com/consulting.html

Citation:
Tegomoh, B. (2025). The Biosecurity Handbook: Biological Security in the AI Era. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18252920. URL: biosecurityhandbook.com