[re: FHI Bio] Nonetheless, I’m somewhat surprised by the size of the team. In particular, I imagine that to meaningfully reduce bio-risk, one would need a bigger team. It’s therefore possible that failing to expand is a mistake.
Specifically on the point about FHI’s bio team, as a semi-insider providing information that isn’t on the web site but isn’t private, I’ll note that the team is actually larger, in several ways. First, they have summer fellows and Oxford PhD students not officially hired by FHI that they work with. They also have people working jointly at/with other organizations (e.g. Piers is at iGem, as is Tessa, and they both talk with FHI folks a lot. Greg is a CHS ELBI fellow, and works with lots of people at CHS/NTI/etc. I work with/for them as a contractor. And Andrew Snyder-Beattie at OpenPhil used to be in charge of the team, and has coordinated projects with other groups.) Lastly, they have also recently brought on board additional people, not reflected on the web page. (Not sure about timing or announcements, so I won’t say anything.)
Specifically on the point about FHI’s bio team, as a semi-insider providing information that isn’t on the web site but isn’t private, I’ll note that the team is actually larger, in several ways. First, they have summer fellows and Oxford PhD students not officially hired by FHI that they work with. They also have people working jointly at/with other organizations (e.g. Piers is at iGem, as is Tessa, and they both talk with FHI folks a lot. Greg is a CHS ELBI fellow, and works with lots of people at CHS/NTI/etc. I work with/for them as a contractor. And Andrew Snyder-Beattie at OpenPhil used to be in charge of the team, and has coordinated projects with other groups.) Lastly, they have also recently brought on board additional people, not reflected on the web page. (Not sure about timing or announcements, so I won’t say anything.)