About Us
We are a group of founders, scientists, doctors, & policymakers who want to accelerate research to strengthen global resilience and reduce the likelihood of catastrophic pandemics.
The AIxBiosecurity Fellowship is a new 8-week, full-time research programme dedicated to tackling biosecurity risks amplified by recent advances in frontier AI capabilities. We want to support early-career researchers investigate ways to reduce extreme risks from engineered and natural biological threats amid rapidly advancing biotechnology and emerging AI capabilities. Our fellowship is designed to meet this reality.
Our Partnership
The AIxBio Research Fellowship is run by ERA, in partnership with the Cambridge Biosecurity Hub.
ERA runs one of the world’s largest, longest-running AI safety and governance talent programmes in the world. We are a talent organisation founded by Cambridge alumni, and based at Cambridge, UK, with strong ties to the University of Cambridge. We support researchers and entrepreneurs working to mitigate risks from frontier AI. So far, ERA’s mission has been largely manifested through our annual ERA:AI fellowship programme.
In 2025, we ran a Summer ERA:AI Research Fellowship, hosted 30+ speakers & workshops over the 8 weeks, ran a Technical AI Governance Forum, and co-organised the 2025 Vegas AI Security Forum. You can see some of our past research here. Over the past 5 years, we have supported over 120 early-career researchers from 10+ countries through our research fellowship and conferences, leading to high counterfactual impact on their careers. We provide our fellows with mentorship from organisations such as UK AISI, CAISI, RAND, GovAI, Google Deepmind etc., and our alumni have gone on to lead work at impactful institutions in this space.
The Cambridge Biosecurity Hub (CBH) is a team of researchers investigating and raising awareness of the risks associated with rapidly developing biotechnologies. We help people learn more about biosecurity and impactful career pathways into AIxBio, while building a supportive community for those working to reduce pandemic risk.
CBH has run a number of projects, including 'Biosecurity Fundamentals' reading groups, an 8-week speaker series, and biosecurity research sprints.
Our largest event to date was the inaugural Cambridge Pandemic Prevention Symposium on October 7, 2024, which brought together over 100 attendees, including experts, academics, and industry professionals from across the UK, for discussions spanning key areas in pandemic policy and technical interventions.
Our Team
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Dr. Grace Braithwaite
Founder of CBH
Grace is a medical doctor who worked in the NHS for 3 years and holds a Master's in Public Health from the University of Sheffield. After a career pivot that included a year as Operations Manager at Meridian, she co-founded the Cambridge Biosecurity Hub with Sandy Hickson, where she now works full-time. In her spare time, Grace enjoys running half marathons, vintage shopping and spending time with her cat Winston (and her fiancé).
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Genevieve Gaul
Programme Associate
Genevieve has experience in long-term project planning, workshop facilitation, and teaching. She first joined ERA as the Community Health Lead. Before this, she designed and organised a student development programme for a university, and studied Literature at Durham University. Outside of work, Genevieve enjoys undertaking various creative projects.
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Marta Strzyga
Operations Manager
Marta previously worked as a contracted recruitment consultant for Lead Exposure Elimination Project (LEEP). They have experience in academic research, publishing, office administration and corporate finance, alongside operations at non-profits. She studied Japanese at SOAS and psychology at University of Glasgow, and speaks Polish, French and Japanese.
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Lennart Justen
Research Manager
Lennart is a Ph.D. candidate and Draper fellow at the MIT Media Lab and the Broad Institute, where he is co-advised by Kevin Esvelt and Pardis Sabeti. Lennart’s professional focus centers on biosecurity and pandemic preparedness, including work on airborne transmission suppression, pandemic early warning systems, and AIxBio risk mitigation. In AIxBio, he has worked on dual-use capability evaluations, including the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proxy (WMDP) and the Virology Capabilities Test (VCT) benchmarks, harm mitigation for biological design tools, and securing AI-assisted lab automation. Lennart has previously held positions at The Council on Strategic Risks, SecureBio, and the U.S. State Department.
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Christopher Stamper
Research Manager
Chris is an independent biosecurity researcher investigating the immunological risks of synthetic mirror life and the incorporation of non-canonical amino acids in protein diffusion models. He earned his PhD in Immunology from the University of Chicago, where he studied B cell responses to influenza and SARS-CoV-2. During his postdoctoral work at the Karolinska Institute, he explored immunogenetic networks at gut mucosal surfaces using single-cell RNA sequencing, bioinformatics, and machine learning. His consulting projects have included universal influenza vaccine design, AI safety and uplift, and benchmarking large language models for virological and immunological laboratory tasks.
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Matt Smith
Research Manager