58: Recipes for Future Plagues | Kevin Esvelt

About this episode

Kevin Esvelt discusses USAID's DEEP VZN program and its implications for pandemic-grade virus research.

USAID's new "DEEP VZN" program aims to discover new pandemic-grade viruses, then broadcast their genomes to the world, according to MIT evolutionary engineer Kevin Esvelt. He estimates that 30,000 people in dozens of countries could then easily assemble them.

People in this episode

Host: Rob Reid

Guest: Kevin Esvelt

Topics covered

• pandemic preparedness
• virus research
• genome broadcasting
• evolutionary engineering
• public health

Keywords

• pandemic
• viruses
• genomes
• USAID
• MIT
• Kevin Esvelt
• public health
• DEEP VZN

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: USAID, MIT, DEEP VZN

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