Frontiers in Microbiology has a new Research Topic now open, accepting manuscripts until April 15, 2027. Topic editors include Bin Hu (LANL) and Michelle Holko (ISCI, Berkeley).
Full text of the announcement is further below. Articles in the first volume include some really good research articles, perspectives, minireviews, and hypothesis and theory articles from the usual suspects. Here are a few.
Editorial: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Biosecurity
From capability uplift to capability governance: an AI–biosecurity stack
Dual-use artificial intelligence and biology: upstream risk-benefit reviews
Glycol vapor pathogen disinfection: a defensive technology for emerging biothreats
Toward relational biosecurity: understanding AI-enabled biology as a connected system
Without safeguards, AI-Biology integration risks accelerating future pandemics
Here’s the full text for Volume II of this research topic.
Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly integrated into biological research and biotechnology, connecting biological data, scientific models, software agents, automated and cloud laboratories, researchers, institutions, and governance systems. As these connections increasingly bridge digital and physical environments, they create new opportunities for scientific innovation as well as new biosecurity questions.
The first edition of Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Biosecurity examined emerging opportunities and risks across AI-enabled biology, including biological design, automated laboratories, data access, safeguards, risk assessment, and governance. Volume II extends this work by examining where biosecurity-relevant capabilities, vulnerabilities, and protections arise across connected AI-bio systems. This includes how interactions, dependencies, information and material flows, feedback loops, and digital-to-physical interfaces shape outcomes that may not be apparent when individual components are evaluated separately.
We welcome research examining both system-level and component-level risks, as well as approaches for making AI-enabled biological systems secure, resilient, trustworthy, and supportive of responsible innovation. Submissions should be oriented toward the detection, assessment, defence, resilience, and governance of AI-enabled biosecurity risks, rather than providing operational guidance that could facilitate the development or enhancement of harmful biological capabilities. Of particular interest are questions of observability, intervention, human agency, accountability, system integrity, and recoverability as AI-enabled workflows become increasingly autonomous and interconnected.
We encourage interdisciplinary contributions spanning microbiology and related biological sciences, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, safety science, complex systems, bioethics, public health, and governance. We particularly welcome microbiology-anchored studies that examine how AI-enabled systems affect microbial research, pathogen biology, microbial genomics, diagnostics and surveillance, laboratory practice, or other areas directly relevant to microbiology and biosecurity. A central question for Volume II is: as AI, biological data, laboratory automation, people, and institutions become more deeply connected, what should the unit of analysis, and ultimately the unit of security, be?
AI-enabled biological workflows and agentic systems
Digital-to-physical transitions and automated laboratories
Information, material, and action flows across AI-bio systems
AI-enabled microbiology, microbial genomics, pathogen research, diagnostics, and surveillance
Evaluation, observability, safeguards, and intervention points
Resilience, recoverability, and system integrity
Cyber–AI–bio convergence
Human agency, organizational factors, and governance
Bioethics and responsible innovation