Max Görlitz

Karma: 1,234

Currently getting a master’s in genomics at Oxford. My thesis is focused on optimizing probe design for bait capture sequencing for infectious disease diagnostics/surveillance. Worked on biosecurity research around far-UVC safety @SecureBio. Organized EA Munich for >2 years and did some EA community building in Germany. Studied 3 years of clinical medicine.

Sometimes, I write about meditation and other stuff. You can find my writing on my website or Substack: https://glozematrix.substack.com/

Feel free to reach out to me at my email address, and let me know if you’d like to chat: hello [at] maxgoerlitz [dot] com

(last updated in March 2024)

Max Görlitz 15 Mar 2024 16:05 UTC
8 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Unflattering aspects of Effective Altruism
I disagree with the EA Forum’s approach to life
Could you elaborate on what you mean by this?
Thanks for referring to these blog posts!

Max Görlitz 12 Mar 2024 14:09 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: christian.r’s comment on: Focus on broad (and passive) defense technologies for biosecurity
Very useful comment, thanks!
hedging against uncertainty: we’re just very uncertain about what a future pandemic might look like and where it will come from
I fully agree with this; I think this was an implicit premise of mine that I failed to point out explicitly.
… though I think for it to work you have to also add a premise about the relative risk of substitution, right?
Great point that I actually haven’t considered so far. I would need to think about this more before giving my opinion. It seems really context-dependent, though, and hard to determine with any confidence.
Also, the Maginot line analogy is cool; I hadn’t seen that before. (I guess I really should read more of your report 🙂)

Max Görlitz 12 Mar 2024 14:00 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: christian.r’s comment on: Why are we not using upper-room ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) more?
That sounds reasonable! Thanks for adding your impression.

Max Görlitz 5 Mar 2024 17:22 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Tejas Subramaniam’s comment on: What posts would you like someone to write?
Very cool thanks for pointing that out! I think I might have seen it before but had forgotten about it—will check it out again.

Max Görlitz 5 Mar 2024 11:44 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: tobytrem’s comment on: What posts would you like someone to write?
Xander, lmk if you have thought about this, and we can chat.

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 16:32 UTC
15 points
1 ∶ 0
on: What posts would you like someone to write?
What a biosafe world looks like
Basically like “What Success Looks Like” (which is about transformative AI) but instead about what a world would look like that is really well protected from catastrophic pandemics.
It could be set in e.g. 2035, and describe what technologies and (political) mechanisms have been implemented to make the world “biosafe”—i.e. safe from global catastrophic biological risks.
I could even imagine versions of this that are a fictional story, maybe describing the life of someone living in that potential future.

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 16:25 UTC
14 points
7 ∶ 0
on: What posts would you like someone to write?
List of theory of change documents of EA orgs.
I think it would be cool to have an overview of how different organizations think about their theory of change and how they present it. This would be helpful for organizations that don’t yet have a public theory of change but would like to create one. It would also be useful for getting a clearer picture of what the high-level plans of different orgs are.

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 12:38 UTC
3 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What posts would you like someone to write?
Comparing different ARPAs, ARIA, and SPRIN-D
- Could be an interesting blog post to compare the ARPAs in the US with ARIA in the UK and SPRIN-D in Germany
- What do they have in common?
  - What are their most important differences?
  - Would be cool to summarise all these comparisons in a nice table

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 12:28 UTC
7 points
1 ∶ 0
on: What posts would you like someone to write?
What would it take to eradicate all infectious diseases by 2050?
I want to see high-level abstract research what it would take to eliminate all infectious disease by a certain date, e.g. 2050 or 2080
I really liked “10 technologies that won’t exist in 5 years” by Jacob Trefethen, and this post would have a similar vibe.

do some very rough BOTECs
- how much did it cost to eliminate smallpox?
- how much did it cost to almost eliminate polio?
- what other diseases have been eradicated?
- come up with average cost of eliminating one disease
- of course last mile is the hardest and maybe most costly
- what other attempts at eradicating diseases failed and how much did that cost?
  - malaria

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 12:08 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: What posts are you thinking about writing?
Comparing agnostic metagenomic sequencing and massively multiplexed bait capture sequencing for clinical disease surveillance and early-warning systems
This will likely be part of my lit review of my master’s thesis and should also make an interesting blog post.
I am unsure whether to call it massively parallelised or massively multiplexed bait capture sequencing when you use on the order of 10⁵-10⁶ probes at the same time
What is agnostic metagenomic sequencing? https://doi.org/10.1128/cmr.00119-22
What is massively multiplexed bait capture sequencing? https://doi.org/10.1128/jcm.00612-23
What are the pros and cons of the different approaches?
- cost?
- amount of labor needed?
- how quickly do you get results?
- ...
examples of Pros of bait capture sequencing
- “results in two to three orders of magnitude enhancement in sensitivity at a reduced cost” (Kapoor et al. 2023)
- “mitigates Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) concerns because host sequence data are not collected” (Kapoor et al. 2023)
How are these methods different from similar, commercially available products?
(e.g., https://www.twistbioscience.com/products/ngs/fixed-panels/comprehensive-viral-research-panel)

Max Görlitz 4 Mar 2024 11:34 UTC
16 points
1 ∶ 0
on: What posts are you thinking about writing?
Things we often tell people considering pivoting into biosecurity work
This will probably be a collaborative giving-advice-to-newcomers style post
Preliminary outline:
1. Intro
  1. Write something if you repeat it a lot
  2. Biosecurity vs. scope-sensitive ‘EA’ biosecurity
2. There are good opportunities for learning, getting started, and testing your fit.
  1. Compared to 5 years ago, we have solid options for getting up to speed
  2. (Meta) readings lists, newsletters, courses, research programs
3. EA-specific mentoring and orgs are sparse
  1. Not many orgs, not a ton of growth
    There is a shortage of organizations that can absorb talent
    Need for more orgs in the future
    Good to have more founder type people
  2. a lot of high-level strategic work (roadmapping, blueprinting) to figure out priorities and gaps in existing academic/industry research
  3. Mentoring is really bottlenecked
4. Free yourself from the ‘EA’-label / A lot of important work happens outside of EA
  1. But don’t despair! There are many places to do important work!
  2. Biosec interventions have a pretty solid causal chain
  3. And many scope-sensitive biosec-promising interventions (path. Agnostic etc.pp.) have lots of overlap with public health or One Health focussed biosec.
  4. A lot of important stuff outside of EA, esp. When it comes to actually implementing stuff
    Examples
  5. Very valuable to get additional marginal scope-sensitive thinking in traditional settings
  6. Become an expert in something “boring”
    Link ASB thing and say it also applies to technical stuff, not only policy work
5. Yes, you can most likely contribute [so be agentic]
  1. Biosec is highly interdisciplinary
  2. points about taking initiative and being agentic.
    Kind of a call to action toward the end of the post
  3. Plenty of open questions for a number of backgrounds
    You def don’t need a biomedical background (that seems to be a common misconception)
    Link to Will’s post about biosecurity needs engineers
    Examples
6. (Conclusion)
  1. Reach out, etc. Maybe just a closing sentence

Max Görlitz 19 Jan 2024 14:10 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Announcing New Biosecurity Interventions Syllabus
It’s fantastic to see that this is public now; thanks, Lin!

Max Görlitz 8 Dec 2023 13:45 UTC
5 points
0 ∶ 0
on: New Our World in Data page & article on pandemics
Brilliant work, as always; thank you! It is great to easily access these graphs and the infographic for future “intro to biosecurity” or similar presentations.

Max Görlitz 20 Nov 2023 18:19 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Hello from the new content manager at CEA
Welcome Toby :)

Max Görlitz 7 Nov 2023 10:38 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
on: Thoughts on far-UVC after working in the field for 8 months
FYI, the review paper that I teased in the introduction has finally been published and is now freely available online. It goes over existing far-UVC skin and eye safety evidence and sketches out important studies that should be done in the future. https://doi.org/10.1111/php.13866
Also, check out these X threads on the paper by Lenni Justen and Kevin Esvelt.

Max Görlitz 24 Aug 2023 12:11 UTC
2 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: Hamish McDoodles’s comment on: Map of maps of interesting fields
I didn’t know that! Thanks for the info.
In the meantime, I have created an MVP google doc of the biosecurity landscape.

Max Görlitz 13 Aug 2023 13:18 UTC
4 points
0 ∶ 0
in reply to: luca’s comment on: Thoughts on far-UVC after working in the field for 8 months
Thanks, Luca!
You are correct that there are no results yet since the trial is still ongoing and double-blinded. I have talked to them about their trial and attended that talk. AFAIK they decided to extend the duration of the trial and are adding another study site (long-term care facility) since they received additional funding for a phase 2.
In this next phase of the trial, they will also be monitoring ozone and volatile organic compounds, which could provide some useful real-world data about those questions.

Max Görlitz 9 Aug 2023 11:45 UTC
13 points
2 ∶ 1
on: How can we improve Infohazard Governance in EA Biosecurity?
Another data point from a post on Reflective Altruism about biorisk:
This post begins a sub-series, “Biorisk” arguing that levels of existential biorisk may be lower than many effective altruists suppose.
I have to admit that I had a hard time writing this series. The reason for that is that I’ve had a hard time getting people to tell me exactly what the risk is supposed to be. I’ve approached high-ranking effective altruists, including those working in biosecurity, and been told that they cannot give me details, because those details pose an information hazard. (Apparently the hazard is so great that they refused my suggestion of bringing their concerns to a leading government health agency, or even to the CIA, for independent evaluation). One of them told me point-blank that they understood why I could not believe them if they were not willing to argue in detail for their views, and that they could make do with that result.

Max Görlitz 8 Aug 2023 9:47 UTC
6 points
3 ∶ 0
on: How can we improve Infohazard Governance in EA Biosecurity?
A related point that I have observed in myself:
I think dual-use technologies have a higher potential for infohazards. I have a preference for not needing to be “secretive,” i.e., not needing to be mindful about what information I can share publicly. Probably there is also some deference going on where I shied away from working on more infohazard-y seeming technologies since I wasn’t sure how to deal with selectively sharing information. Accordingly, I have preferred to work on biorisk mitigation strategies that have little dual-use potential and, thus, low infohazard risk. (In my case far-UVC, another example would be PPE).
The problem with this is that it might be much more impactful for me to work on a biorisk mitigation technology that has more dual-use potential, but I haven’t pursued this work because of infohazard vibes and uncertainty about how to deal with that.
Another difficulty, especially for junior people, is that working on projects with significant infohazard risk could prevent you from showing your work and proving your competence. Since you might not be able to share your work publicly, this could reduce your chances of career advancement since you (seemingly) have a smaller track record.

Max Görlitz 7 Aug 2023 14:34 UTC
9 points
1 ∶ 0
in reply to: Tessa’s comment on: How can we improve Infohazard Governance in EA Biosecurity?
(Side note: it’s always both flattering and confusing to be considered a “senior member” of this community. I suppose it’s true, because EA is very young, but I have many collaborators and colleagues who have decade(s) of experience working full-time on biorisk reduction, which I most certainly do not.)
I think part of this is that you are quite active on the forum, give talks at conferences, etc., making you much more visible to newcomers in the field. Others in biosecurity have decades of experience but are less visible to newcomers. Thus, it is understandable to infer that you are a “senior member.”

Max Görlitz

What a biosafe world looks like

List of theory of change documents of EA orgs.

Comparing different ARPAs, ARIA, and SPRIN-D

What would it take to eradicate all infectious diseases by 2050?

Comparing agnostic metagenomic sequencing and massively multiplexed bait capture sequencing for clinical disease surveillance and early-warning systems

Things we often tell people considering pivoting into biosecurity work