Biology - The Next Defence Frontier - With Max Breet, Gingko Bio

Max Breet's Journey to Biosecurity Leadership Over the past decade, biology has quietly shifted from a public health niche to a core national security domain. The tools have changed cheaper synthesis, AI enabled design, faster iteration. But so has the geopolitical landscape. Biological events can now disrupt societies, militaries and economies as quickly as cyber attacks or kinetic strikes. And yet, among all the excitement around CRISPR protein design, or generative AI, bio security remains one of the most overlooked defense topics. Today's guest is one of the rare people who has lived both sides of that shift. Max Breed spent years at Andrel building autonomy programs in Europe and then made the move upstream into bio defense, where he now works on bio security at Ginkgo. In his words, biology is becoming the next defining security challenge. But institutions are far less prepared than they were for autonomy or cyber. A dense, important conversation, and one that sets the stage for where national security is heading next. Let's dive in. Speaker 2 Max, I'm very happy to have you here and to have a conversation on what I think is a truly overlooked topic, so thanks for coming by. Speaker 3 Yeah, absolute pleasure to be here and I, I couldn't agree more. Speaker 2 So you are one of the very few talents that actually went from working at a defence company here Angeville to know working on bio defence here Ginkgo bio what push you to make the jump? Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, look, Andrew is a phenomenal generational company and provided me with a hugely formative experience. I will be forever grateful to the the founders that brought me on a very early stage of their journey to build the EMEA teams. I think for me making the making the choice on next steps of the four years from Andrew was I didn't, I didn't have conviction to hop to a competitor to write a very similar chapter to the one I'd just done for Andrew. And I think for me the bio defense piece is not leaving defense and national security at all. It's simply moving upstream of where I think the next round of challenges is coming for the security defense ecosystem. The same dynamics that transformed autonomy, cheap tools, fast iteration, strategic impact were emerging in biology, but with far less institutional readiness, in spite of the fact we'd all gone through a pandemic in recent memory. So to me it was clear that the many that many of the defining security questions of the next decade will be biological. It's been phenomenal to learn a new category of risk, but still firmly integral to the defence and national security ecosystem. Speaker 2 No, I think that's great, but you still a few that actually makes for makes the switch. And and I remember you said on a panel that that some people will take you as a as a prepper. What's the like the hardest thing about explaining this field? People who don't think of biology as a security domain. Speaker 3 Right. Yeah, yeah, I think I said I didn't want people to walk away from the panel thinking I was a prepper that slept with a gas mask under his pillow. Yeah. So I, I think the the hard, the hard part of this field is most people, and, and this is my my peer group, still in uniform, met many of my closest friends. Most people instinctively think of biology as healthcare or natural science, not as critical infrastructure. And so once you show how biological events disrupt readiness and logistics and national resilience just as effectively as cyber attacks or kinetic strikes, the mental model shifts pretty quickly. Like, I haven't yet met anyone across the the landscape that has challenged my logic when presented. But the hard part up front is, is educating why they need to switch them, switch the mental model in terms of how they're thinking about biology. Geopolitical Factors Elevating Biosecurity's Importance And what happens in terms of changing tools to a political context that moved bio from a public health topic to now defense priority? Speaker 3 Right. So I think there's, there's a, there's a few bits here, right. So I think after the over the past decade, I agree that biology is quietly moved from a specialist scientific field into a genuine national security domain. And I think that's the convergence of three things. I think the tools of bioengineering have become cheaper, more accessible, and AI enabled. I think biological events, whether they're natural or accidental, have proven they can disrupt societies, militaries, and economies simultaneously at strategic scale. And then I think competitors have begun treating biotechnology as instruments of state power. So, you know, the reality is COVID-19 made it clear that biology can have system level effects at extraordinary speed. Since then, NATO and partner nations are recognizing that bio security is not a public health niche. It is force protection, it is operational resilience, and it is geopolitical stability in the kind of century of biology. Speaker 2 You mentioned in bio, there's been huge breakfast, there's been CRISPR DNA synthesis in design and there's been a massive disinterest like went into these categories, but not so much yet into bio security. So there's been one company which announced around from locks and a couple of weeks ago that made some noise. But otherwise that's pretty much it. Why do you think bio security remains in niche today in terms of company built? Speaker 3 Yeah. And and you know, and I think the the prospect of new entrance to bio security and bio defense is is a positive thing. Yeah, I think the reality is that biotechnology investment over recent years has mostly flowed towards therapeutics, right, because the commercial incentives are very clear. So if you weren't making the drug, you probably weren't succeeding in the, you know, in the capital markets. I think bio defense, by contrast, sits across health defense, interior agriculture A simultaneously. So the responsibility is fragmented and no single institution owns the mission. I think the, you know, the kind of central executive offices coordinate, but they rarely manage and the and the stakes have farmed out across a government ecosystem. And politically it's easier to de prioritize preparedness until a crisis forces attention. So the tools have advanced dramatically, but our systems for managing biological risk have not really kept pace. Understanding Incremental Optimization of Known Pathogens What's exactly are we like talking about here in terms of threats? You know, weaponizing biology can mean many different things. You can have engineered pathogens. You can have targeted effects. You can have a pandemic like recovery. You can have, I don't know, genetic enhancements program the soldiers. Which scenario is actually plausible today that, for instance, you think the government should focus on and take action on? Speaker 3 Yeah, Yeah, certainly it's like an incredibly broad spectrum of potential threat vectors. But I think if we're if we're grounded in realistic risks, less the science fiction to me, you know, they are optimized or modified versions of known pathogens. How would adversaries make them easier to grow or spread? How would they make them resistant to existing countermeasures? How would they target agriculture and livestock to create economic and food security disruption? I I think they're highly targeted genetic weapons remain theoretically plausible but technically difficult right, albeit warrant persistent monitoring full stop. To me, the real concern is incremental optimization of the known biological hazards in the kind of near and now time frame. Speaker 2 So it's not yet possible to basically build a bio weapon with AI protein design. Speaker 3 Well, I don't think that is a substantive statement that I can make. There are more technically qualified persons to do that, but I absolutely think that AI enablement will lower the bar to entry on that type of research and development, right? Therefore it would be logical that the bar is lowered for everyone, whether you are a highly qualified, government accredited, well intended researcher or you are someone coming at it from a more lone wolf angle or kind of with nefarious intent. I think the the barrier to entry at the moment is knowledge in knowledge in biology is mostly accrued through experimentation right? So you need wet lab access and that is still for the meantime, at least like an expensive investment to make an access is in some way control, albeit not controlled to the same levels across the globe in, in reality. But but to me, if I'm like, yes, I, I obviously think long and hard on the threat factor of the bioengineered weapon. But if I'm, if I'm thinking about what is realistically a threat factor now, I think it's, it's much more realistic to think that it's the optimization and modification of known pathogens than that it is to get into the kind of human augmentation or de Novo bio weapon space. Again, not to undervalue the persistent monitoring of those BDW programs. I'm just thinking about, you know, what's the near term threats. Speaker 2 And what does it look like then? This enhancements of existing pathogens and. Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, I think it's a like a scenario is always best to to walk this through. If if we look at say the port of Rotterdam, which is largest in Europe, I think if I have my facts straight, it's second largest outside of Asia, major tributary for European logistics. Like a majority of defense aid to Ukraine comes in through that locality. What seems far more hypothetically realistic is how you might simply deploy a naturally occurring high path influenza to that locality and all of a sudden logistics and supply chain grinds to a halt, for example, Right. Not to say that's going to happen, but I just think there is before you get into the realms of novel bioengineering, I think there's much, much simpler, actually much harder to counter deployments of naturally occurring things to, you know, to, to grind the European machine or like the international machine to a halt. Speaker 2 When we talk about bio threats here, the the subcategory of bio threats that capture the most public attention would be the bio weapons. How Geopolitical Rivals Exploit Biosecurity Gaps For sure. Speaker 2 Is this the thing we talked about a lot during the Cold War? I think you might like give you like a shortest circle of context for bioplans and explain why the field went from like famous to like more taboo than for decades. Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I think the the if there is a taboo associated to bio weapons, it's because of the atrocities that the world saw through the 20th century, right, you know, in in and around the World War 2 history. And I think, you know, thus we have the biological weapons Convention, which created a strong international norm. The reality is that to do has been remarkably durable, but it's also created blind spots. I think if nations assume no one would ever do this or do this again, they're clearly going to under invest in detection and preparedness. So my take is the solution isn't to weaken the taboo that's, you know, that's almost necessity is to pair it with credible surveillance and attribution and resilience. But that that's where the that's like the historical origin point is, you know, early to mid 20th century activities that led to the beat up. Speaker 2 And I feel like this taboo today has become, as you said, like a strategic vulnerability. People don't like to think about it, let alone talk about it. And meanwhile, like in China has called biotech, you know, commanding heights of National Defence. Russia happy appears to be reactivating parts of its old bio program. You know what it does look like in practice in this country is revival of bio security, like bio becoming security domain. Yeah. Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, so without overstating classified or uncertain claims, I think the the open source picture is pretty clear. China has integrated biotechnology into its economic planning, its military modernization and industrial strategy at national scale. That is categorically true. And the reality is China is probably leading the world on biotechnology from an R&D spawn standpoint, from an industrial manufacturing standpoint. Russia uses disinformation aggressively on on bio and has shown interest in legacy elements of its historical Soviet programs in in Europe on on the kind of like eastern flank of NATO alongside very clear use of illegal chemical weapons in Ukraine and the Ukraine. So, you know that the intent and the, I guess the ethical guardrails are very different from the, you know, those kind of competitors standpoint that it is to the West. I think the point for NATO is not panic. It's recognizing that biology is now a field of strategic competition. The priority is resilience, tempo and reducing industrial dependencies on competitors like for example, the US pharmaceutical supply chain in its basic raw ingredients. The vast majority of those come from China that that creates A tremendous dependency in your society, whereas resilience or your ability to respond to biological risk in the in the construct of another pandemic. Speaker 2 Good news is that the West seems to be starting to catch up or just to wake up. And I know in the US, like 2 weeks ago, we announced that biotech was one of the six strategic priorities alongside the plants or hypersonics. Looking at what's happening in China or in Russia, what would it take for the West to catch up? Is it something on the policy side of things? Is it on the supply chain? Yeah. Building Resilience and Sustaining Post-COVID Capabilities I think the like I tend to not frame this as an arms race, right? I think the goal is resilience and autonomy and tempo. I think that is that kind of chimes with the macro theme of sovereignty across security defense anyway at the moment. But I think that requires 3 things. In biotechnology, I think you need a strong allied bio industrial base so we aren't dependent on strategic competitors for critical inputs. As you know, to the example I've just given, I think doctrine and institutions that treat biology as a defense domain is key. And I think NATO is actively working on those new concepts, which will be a major step forward in biological preparedness and response. And then thereafter like a tight operator innovator ecosystem that can actually turn scientific capability into deployable systems quickly. Because otherwise this just lets in, you know, early stage S&T land and never, never breaks through to of adoption. And I think that's that's the third piece of the puzzle. Speaker 2 Like the concept I think of biofred was a very distant idea and then as you said earlier, COVID happened and it felt like a global wake up call as we now understand how bio threats could put the world to stop. The good thing about COVID is that it also enabled stronger coordination between hospitals, programs, government. Does this coordination infrastructure Belgium COVID still exist today? Speaker 3 Some elements, you know, I mean, I think there's there's still an index on genomic capacity within governments. There's certain certain data pipelines or extend and ultimately a shared professional memory of global vulnerability. But a lot of it has been eroded. The fundings declined, real time systems were scaled back in reality and attention shifted. I think the the challenge now is turning war worked under crisis conditions into durable institutionalized by surveillance and bio intelligence systems that rather than the temporary fix and that's always been the challenge for bio security and bio defense is really one of if not the only strategic risk that sees investment at point of incidental crisis and never before which is challenging to sustain those enduring capabilities if you're not, if you haven't got the kind of the budgets, the data sharing arrangements and the kind of political will driving behind it with some consistency. Speaker 2 And do you see a political will and like NATO moving fast and on this and like really putting budget on this topic? Speaker 3 I think so. I mean the, I think my take is there are tailwinds coming for bio defense in 2026 and beyond. I I see and hear a lot more kind of coherence on the topic of bio security. NATO has formulated, you know, several strategies related to biotechnology and human enhancement. It has emerging concept in spectrum coming through on biological preparedness and response. You know the right parts of the the NATO organization across NIF and Diana and shape and the headquarters are actively focusing on biotechnology. People have paid attention to the US Department of war down selecting bio manufacturing is one of its six critical technologies to move forward with. So I think it's there you, you really don't need to convince the scientists this and technology as this is an important thing. They're already convinced and have been for some time. You, you rarely need to convince the policy makers either. I think what's important is how you really start to a better, more fundamental connection to, to kind of the, the war fighting element, right? Like how do you actually start to think about the use cases that are going to deliver enduring kind of effect forward in the bio defence construct at least? Ginkgo's Role in Global Biointelligence and Detection OK, that's, that's good news. And then what does it take like a realistic path to reach a world where biological threats can be detected and utilized immediately? I think it's something that was the company I was talking about earlier is focusing on. I don't know if you have any stance on that. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. And I think the, the, the Valtos mission statement, much like Ginkgo bio securities is, is the right one. I, I think if I'm pragmatic from, so the time that I've spent in uniform and through the Andrew years, I think instant neutralization is unrealistic. But I do think the rapid detection and attribution and countermeasure development is achievable, right? But it it requires a go a global biointelligence grid Federated by a threats radar, flexible vaccine and therapeutic platforms and a clear multi agency playbook. You know, the various stakeholders need to know what they're going to do at point of incident crisis. And ideally they have some early warning indication. So all, all, all of those things would turn biological risk from an unmanageable shock into something states can respond to with tempo and precision, which is just not what we did during the last pandemic. At the moment we wouldn't see that much better a response in in the next one. Speaker 2 When we talk about detection, we talk about radar here by your radar. Does it feel like we turn this into a Orwellian scenario? Is there a way to prevent, you know, to reach bio surveillance without turning into population surveillance? Speaker 3 Yeah, right. So I think the the point on this one is that it depends how you orientate the bias surveillance. Certainly the way we think about it and you know the way responsible stakeholders suit is by design most bias surveillance is environmental and aggregate, not individual. So strong governance must hard code, data security purpose limits, transparent oversight into the system. And I think the reason for that is public trust is not nice to have in this category. It's a strategic enabler. Without it, the systems we rely on for early warning will not endure. And that's both the relationship with the general public, like how you bring them on the journey for biological risk. You know, if you think about the mixed response to vaccination programs through COVID, exactly that reason. And then also you need the. Trust in place between the various government departments and ultimately public and private stakeholders that are that are driving the same crisis if. Speaker 2 You come back just on your on your side. So you're not working at a Ginkgo so bioengineering company, but like you work within the bio security unique, what do you actually move there and what is, Yeah, what is a bio security unit at Ginkgo? Speaker 3 Yeah, right. So Ginkgo Bio Security, the specific bio security division of Ginkgo Bio Works Incorporated ultimately use biology, sensing, sequencing, analytics to secure biological environments. That really breaks down into two main things, right? So it's global situational awareness and then on the ground detection networks in places like airports and hospitals and critical infrastructure. Most of our partners are government or you know, multilateral organizations and the goal ultimately is a sovereign capacity that countries then own and operate themselves. So how you actually Co design and deploy bio surveillance systems in locality if that makes sense? Speaker 2 Yeah, definitely. And I think you, so you have different products. I was looking for websites. You have Ginkgo Horizon, which is like a global intelligent platform. You have a canopy for detection nodes. What does it take more on the technical side of things to build what you call a bio radar? Yeah. Speaker 3 So I think what we have, so yes exactly there ultimately there's two layers of a single radar system this horizon which aggregates signals from many sources to spot anomalies and trends globally. There is canopy which generates those signals locally through deployed sampling and sequencing. I think what we have learned from several years kind of again Co designing and deploying these bio surveillance programs globally is that biology is local. What is normal in Rwanda is not normal in Norway, right? And so understanding those baselines is essential. You need the foundation of bio surveillance in place before you can start to build in the multi, you know, the kind of multi layered response mechanisms that governments require. So the real challenges are less technical, not to discredit my technical colleagues in the business. The real challenges are not technical that governance and logistics and data sharing and making operators and engineers work side by side. Those are from very familiar experiences to me from Andrew and and the kind of defense technology sector. So when that happens, countries can stand up real capability very quickly. I think, I think the the the various COVID task force through the pandemic proves that you need all of those things in place to get it right. And again, it all starts with mast Federated bio surveillance. Is the foundation OK? Adapting Biosecurity for Diverse Global Contexts OK. Thanks for that. And so I mean you mentioned, so you've deployed systems across I think a dozen countries and globally like I have some countries which are much more forward than some others on this topic. Speaker 3 Yeah, good question. I mean, the, the I think the take away from my experience is over 18 months looking after the bio surveillance programs across EMEA is none of them are the same, right. There's, there's not a rinse and repeat model to this. And that's why it is, you know, punitive, expensive, but mission oriented work. What is the right kind of calibration and design for a bio surveillance in Ukraine, which is, is something we have and have done for several years now, is less appropriate to, you know, an airport wastewater surveillance program in the Middle East or, you know, a bio surveillance program in abattoirs in in Africa? I think it's, it's interesting in so far as every government stakeholder we engage is not necessarily the same. No governments are exactly the same. And frankly, we work across the full spectrum of government apparatus. So what's appropriate to a defense or national security stakeholder is not one in the same for public health or health security agencies. There are some overlaps and they're increasing areas of convergence. But again, this is really about how you, how you sit down and really thoughtfully think about the Co design and the deployment strategy of these systems to get to the, from the point of raw biological sample, like how you collect, then extract, then sequence, then analyze these materials as a, as a complete work through with a secure chain of custody of that material through the whole process. And then how you think about tailoring the analytics in a reporting format appropriate to the government stakeholder in front of you, right. Again, which is slightly different between the public health community through to the national security and defence community. Speaker 2 OK, so no damage shame here. Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. Speaker 2 So you talk about government a lot, whether only clients who are buying today, do you see a commercial market emerging? Does it even make sense to talk about commercial market for bio defence? Speaker 3 It's probably 22 parts to the answer. I think the reality is upfront those that are paying for or you know open to contract for bio security now are predominantly government and I think that's all be true for some time and may always be where this primarily lives. Yes, upfront most of the work is government in some way shape or form. That said, I do think there is viable commercial applications, how corporations or multinational airline groups or hospital networks think about their resilience and their kind of continuity. So the when, not if, but when the next pandemic comes, there there is ready for it. And they're already kind of tuned to the protocols and reporting formats the government will want to see. But the challenge is it's just it's just not there now. It's an expense to the business to invest in those areas outside of a compliance driven requirement from government, right. So that's the. That's the hard piece to reconcile, but it's not because the use case isn't viable. Speaker 2 OK, nice and see. Max Breet's Vision and Essential Biodefense Resources And so if tomorrow you're becoming a defence minister, I'm guessing the UK, just because of your citizenship, what would you do to really bring bio security as a core national security function? Speaker 3 Yeah. I mean, great question. I think again, they started my career in uniform. So nobody needs to tell me why the munitions and armaments for kind of European rearmament are the priority. I think that's categorically true. The, you know, the bullets, the beans, the bandages for for, for Ukraine matter more than anything right now. And I think we have to move categorically with more tempo and conviction from a defense construct. But in reality, where I would perhaps challenge the system is that I think defense across the across the ecosystem of government defense is uniquely placed to step up and lead on this topic. I didn't say a seniority and an influence within the Whitehall construct. At least it has a track record historically of driving unilateral capability development. And I think it is integral to the current set of defense and security challenges within Europe like UKUK can and should step up to lead within the alliance. And I think bio defense is going to be as important in terms of emerging technology and strategic risk as anything else in that category, AI quantum space. So to me, I would just challenge the system to really step back and think about the how they are tailoring the innovation agenda to biotechnology and how they are thinking about bio security or bio defense is the responsible underwriting for faster, more responsible innovation in biotech because I think it will bring inordinate returns. And and actually in this category more than anything else, it is a whole of government problem, right? So you're going to need better lines of communication between the government departments. And I think again, that is a area where defence is uniquely placed to to social leadership. Speaker 2 You sound very helpful. Are you optimistic that we can get ahead of, yeah, biological risk and get all this, you know, discussion and infrastructure together in the. Speaker 3 Next. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 3 You know, I, I think you know why I, I, I bring, I bring several decades of scar tissue in terms of engaging government on emerging technology, you know, first as an end user and then, and then in the private sector. I think I am a pessimistic optimist. So cautious is yes, I think, I think technology is improving just faster than the risk. I think governments are beginning to treat bio security as a defense priority and institutions like NATO are developing the doctrine, which is the first building block isn't depends on sustained political will. And so if attention fades, the window narrows. I think if we treat bio security as a core national security mission set, we, we, the UK, the West Europe can definitely stay ahead of competitors. Speaker 2 OK, great. That's a that's a very helpful message for that actually. Lastly, because you personally going for military, even defence then now bio security, there's some like book books or podcasts that really helps you grow and like yeah, become knowledgeable. Speaker 3 In the bio category specifically, yeah, you mean? Yeah, I mean. Speaker 2 This is like the challenge of a decade. Let's go into this, into this industry. Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, look, when I when I was first moving from the military into the private sector, I had the fortune of Chris Bros being the strategy officer Andrew, and having gone to the trouble to essentially write the playbook in the kill chain that we now kind of consider essential reading for anyone thinking about defense. I don't think that yet exists in bio Security is the reality. Maybe that's the opportunity for me and the colleagues to get to get to work, not to say have the same talents as Bros, but I think there are increasingly sharp and eloquent analysis coming out of think tanks and academics institutions. I, I, you know, I will point to a few bits. We, I was very fortunate to be a co-author on the Tony Blair Institute bio security paper. That was a, that was an excellent exercise in, in sitting down and thinking about the, the right architecture for governments on bio defense. And then outside of the work I've done, I think Stanford's Hoover Institution has just published a, a really excellent paper on bio security. I think it's called Bio Security really, but that that's about as as good as it gets in in reality in terms of a neutral but really broad and technically accurate perspective on bio security, I'd say. Speaker 2 Yeah, so you shared it. So I I read it. I'm going to put the the link as well in in the notes of this episode. And I started Ginkgo also started a newsletter and over signal on this topic than to educate the public here. Speaker 3 Yeah, it's I mean, yeah, I think the communications is is as important. There's anything else on this topic. And I think we got to a point where we we realized in kind of like closed forum live sessions, the people were responding well to the thesis of bio security and and so we should probably go to the trouble of documenting our various thoughts on that topic too. So, yeah, I mean, I think we'll keep driving that writing and I think anyone else interested in the in the field should go should go and write some, you know, should put pen to paper to on this because everything helps the education of the, you know, the the broader ecosystem, but definitely. Speaker 2 And then maybe one day you'll write the the equivalent of the kitchen book. Speaker 3 Yeah, I think we'd have to certainly changed the language, but for sure there need, there needs to be some kind of long form writing on the topic. Speaker 2 OK. Yeah. Well, thanks a lot Max for coming by. I think it was a very important question to have, So thanks for your time. Speaker 3 Awesome. Real pleasure. Thank you very much.