About SAIFbio

SAIFbio is a nonprofit founded by the partners of SAIF Ventures to confront one of the most consequential risks of the coming decade: an engineered pandemic.

Our mission

We exist to build a global immune system — the surveillance, safeguards, and countermeasures the world needs to stop the next biological catastrophe before it begins.

The same advances that make modern biology a source of cures also make it a source of risk. As AI accelerates what a single actor can design and synthesize, the gap between offense and defense widens. SAIFbio works to close that gap — funding, coordinating, and championing the people and programs that keep us safe.

What we do

Fund the gaps

We direct philanthropic capital to the highest-leverage, most-neglected work across biosecurity — the startups, nonprofits, and programs that would not otherwise exist.

Steward the plan

We help maintain the Bio Action Plan: a public, five-year roadmap (2027–2031) with concrete milestones and metrics, and we track progress against it openly.

Convene the field

We bring together funders, researchers, founders, and policymakers so effort is coordinated rather than duplicated.

Prevent, Detect, Respond

We organize our work around three lines of defense — the same architecture as the Bio Action Plan we help steward.

Prevent

Stop dangerous capabilities from being acquired or misused — nucleic acid synthesis screening, know-your-customer for high-risk tools and services, AIxBio safeguards, stronger research governance, and threat disruption, attribution, and deterrence.

Detect

Identify threats that prevention misses — a pathogen-agnostic global early-warning system, and diagnostics and testing that can be deployed within weeks of a new threat emerging.

Respond

Respond faster than the pathogen can spread — essential workforce protection, biohardening of the built environment, rapid medical countermeasures, and global response coordination.

See the full plan at bioactionplan.org ↗

Governance

SAIFbio Inc. is a nonprofit organization recognized by the IRS as a tax-exempt public charity under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code (EIN 42-2661289). Contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

SAIFbio is operated by the partners of SAIF Ventures and maintains books and governance separate from the venture fund. Geoffrey Ralston serves as President.

Meet the team