episodes of our episodes. plus a variety of compelling podcasts. it is available at the apple store and google play. or go to our website. your front row seat to washington anytime, anywhere. >> a republican congressman leaded -- let a conversation on bio security. they discussed several topics, including the opportunities and challenges of ai and threats from foreign adversaries. this is hosted by the american enterprise institute and includes an introduction from the house intelligence chair.

>> two engage with foreign policy outside cost intelligence community.

we are thrilled to have chairman turner the best% a few things. as a position and surgeon and army officer thrilled to have him and uncovering this immensely important question of where covid originated. we don't need a more vivid illustration of what could go on because we lived through the covid pandemic. not taking a position yet on origination but can see what

happens when you're unprepared wiping out untold millions of people's creating a global crisis. imagine from just watching not illustration your mind to protect ourselves against. biotech catching up in many respects. we have a great panel. we have people who know something. the department of defense and emerging biotechnology.

there's only another practice. most recently weapons of mass destruction threat very prolific on biology and biotech and china so thank you and i'll turn it over to you. >> will together and resurgent

foreign policy really does help with the and how we respond. thank you for hosting. i was given to tasks, to return to the committee back to focus on national security accomplishment got through reinstalling bipartisan committees and redundant. all members of the committee, it does take every individual to work in a bipartisan manner. the second, people who went to the basement of the capital but the intelligence given to

congress is done so it can impact decision-making are heartily translate intelligence products? we reconnected so we could say what intelligence we have that is relevant and also look out side of the intelligence committee itself to guide individuals who can help us fashion our to do list of things we need to incorporate so thank you for being part of that. the second he's have is here

about. but from his background and work in progress has questioned leadership is this space for himself, he surgeon himself. he is the chair of coronavirus origins. he's led as chair of the committee to question data and information of the public and congress has received and the work committee has done. i'm sure that will fashion the discussion today because we are facing unprecedented threat of natural and man-made the weaponization. a leader in our committee and

someone is a member of our committee with unique capabilities, the ability to take the intelligence community further into discussion. we all think of what the first question should be. really challenging them on their work and how their work is relevant retiring this year because of his active in the work of congress and important topics,.

>> thank you. we know and rely on you for kind remarks. it's important we open ourselves up to meet intelligence for a long time, i just tells you what they are doing but we are in a place where we are us subject matter we like our budget is and

get feedback from those out there in the trenches everyday so with bio weapons the army 25 years, i started i meant for one year. from looking at this before covid and what adversaries make be up to put covid highlighted it even more and during looked down i was researching with another doctor tried to figure out how we were going to treat patients. what is going on with people and how do we counteract people alive? the same time he sends me this link and says look at this. it was a published article from 2015 with a took virus is to create a new virus, gain of

function research so that set off to what we are doing. i do want to say february of this year intelligence community noted threat from emerging biotechnologies current biological agents the dynamic nature of deliberate biological threat probably maintained pathogens and china and russia have proven the information that may be out there. we have to confidence and countermeasures and u.s. biotechnology and research so the discussion today involves that. i think it is timely and informative and those watching

virtually. there will be a q&a and i'm excited about the panel. they've been introduced. let me start with this, given the work you do you have the opportunity to tell the audience about the space and lay the foundation. we will put on the line. >> with senators and we have not

just bipartisanship in the sense of membership but in the sense of commitment to what we are trying to. we got a number of tasks. tension there will be people there, one of our goals is to have an educated public. think about a.i. where was a.i. five years ago and wears a today? how many people know about a.i. or talk about it as opposed to five years ago? take the word a.i. out and put the word biotech and we want to

have an educated public. you talked about covid. national security isn't just about the icy. it goes across the board in terms of government activities such as dealing with covid or in terms of the threat which is across the board, to. we are trying to look over the next mountain range and see what's coming trying to encourage public-private partnerships. a series of goals and was issued white papers on the web and letters to congress suggesting certain activities without taking position so we are not

just issuing report and another one in december but actively trying to promptly discussion that covers a lot of territory because biotech and combined with a.i. literally covers the earth. >> thank you so much. i'm going to talk about potential of biotechnology and it has to do with food and medicine and our ability earners everything then at a.i. and

these are not future issues or sci-fi, this is today. ensuring the public understands where it is going and the great potential. we need to work together on this issue because we want to make sure these technologies are developed with value moving forward. national security beverages. things that are not immediately able to be commercialized and we

need to be able to provide the support. china has planted interesting to watch it unfold. it built out the technology area. includes dependencies and will look at the infrastructure and nonhuman primate employers public-private civilian and it creates challenges and technologies being developed.

you add a.i., incredible focus on those areas and have a strategy to promote. >> when you look at weapons of mass reduction, it's not a lot of good news so in terms of what i'm working on doing a lot of worry when you think about bio security. the key question that comes up, are we ready? maybe we are already in the next one and we don't know it yet. when you think about covid

oranges, it's important to figure out where it came from. i believe it came from a lab and there are a lot of views on but i think about the debate what it's done to confidence and our public and the thing most foxing what have seen and those are serious concerns because whether man-made or natural we would need all of those.

i saw that in many people don't remember presumably from china in 2020, agriculture was a big part of that so reinforcing pandemic preparedness, agencies ready for what they might have to do in an outbreak.

>> senior counselor and served in public health. we work to deliver on the promise of a.i. for lifesaving treatment but we know there is the knowledge with a.i., an increase threat of misuse and abuse and people creating bio weapons to hamas. as i say that, this isn't a new challenge, data has been occurring for decades. it's important as we are on the verge of a.i. so if i think about the way we mitigate, there

are two paradigm shifts the first this life sciences and they need to be considered at the core of national security and that is a real change in thinking ground. soccer perspective, we believe software is overlooked transform our national security posture and the core component required for bio security. one is bio surveillance, software and analytics can rapidly detect outbreaks long before and it can enhance the pot or to deliver rapidly from where they are produced where they are used and another example manufacturing due to

complete revolution to allow the capacity and ability to react quickly to allow us to prepare letter and respond better to threats. we really do think it is important to incident software as a core component of national security. >> thank you. i focus on china and asia policy so i think a lot about china and maligned influence including this space. i did have the opportunity to do some work for the department of defense to look how china is competing.

looking at this industrial model and telecommunications and the smooth force industrial policy and one question is, is that possible? and in some ways it is. the fact that generic drugs in the united states are manufactured in china so broadly with the supply-chain issue.

china starting to occupy value chain and animals on toxicology research getting a dominant position which watching china as part of the playbook. they dominated the processing, too. they want to dominate this middle and and you can gain a lot of leverage. china can get a lot of leverage about enterprise so i think one

day we will wake up looking at the critical mineral processing. it is my understanding china is a fast follower and 1.5 trials every for we have but there will be a little state there's a lot

of studies on break assignments and how it fits with warfare. i will and rising a lot of scientists say what does it matter if china has more discoveries than we have? let's just look at the weight china accident covid. we still have an answer how covid originated solely because the prc covers it up. this information, destruction of clinical. why does anybody think it's an area we will get cooperation? people are chasing country when there are areas of cooperation

but covid behavior should destroy the motion we will get cooperation on public health and science. >> i couldn't have asked for a better opening round from everybody. i think you touched on just about every question. a lot of good information. we may be able to protect ourselves.

what we do know is the capability to create the virus. the cover-up you mentioned, no cooperation from china. his drying sequences and etc. we are not a healthy nation, we are not a secure nation. bottom line. she cannot control cap with medication we are at the mercy.

it's not only that they control, we can't be sure about the quality. the content dominate and that's a problem so food supply was really important. we met with the who and animals and agriculture, extremely important to security so with the landscape changing, how has it changed our strategies? maybe more specifically because of their behaviors.

>> i tend to admire problems particularly in this area but that's a great question. supply chain issues need to be addressed and addressed quickly. if there's a conflict in western pacific and focus on the fact that medicines would be available and address it's been around since i started four years ago. in may happen at the individual scientific round but it won't

happen state to state or country to country and this supply chain we have to, we have policies in place to be sure went we have incentives but it's gaining economic leverage and other incentives and manufacture. >> one of the most important things we can do covid and the

last 20 years is find ways to enhance surveillance detection. you can look back, stars must act on. there were months of delay trying to find out covid so whatever mechanisms we have today need to be supplemented with additional want. from software perspective marching down left to right there's the ability now to aggravate nontraditional health data and nontraditional not health data and analyze it and look for signals an outbreak may occur to can identify places you know you need to ask questions.

does a lot of work on diagnostics. public health and disease these diagnostics can be analyzed against the huge library and you can understand what's happening characterized the threat. there are multiple organizations and makes sharing information when they come to a common understanding of what's occurring difficult and software can harmonize quickly and allow people what's been collected and allow access formation gathered.

supply chains would have been impossible in the past collecting data points and understanding connectivity is possible so an opportunity to thoughtful analysis and understand situational awareness potential vulnerabilities. >> i agree and even monitor open source and pick up information. what shown during the pandemic

and formed the alliance with our trusted partners so i appreciate ... >> i think there might be a tendency talking about what china did and forget they are still doing that. they are hiding the information and i believe it was last week that a true international investigation and it was not legitimate from the beginning

what i would say this conversation we are having you think about ebola in africa and the sars one outbreak is a difference between cooperating countries and non- operating countries. we have not had the conversations and how we will cover those.

thursday assumption in the probably exist but does not amongst adversaries. >> one that we have not the one we want. one of the global firms currently in pandemic preparedness but also global norms of science.

what we encourage here today are growing part of our development in different aspects will because you're always looking for the lowest cost and space. >> you can help strategy every agency in the united states government has its own strategy.

how do you get government beyond just the craze? they have one over arching agency. we've got to figure out how to have all agencies working in tandem. who's going to oversee them? part about working with allies. we are ad hoc right now. we don't have any real structure working on a regular basis. look at pillar two-part, you said there's a model and talked

about coming in and they talked about biotech. what about actually building things as opposed to researching and developing them? we don't build to scale. then in the health field when it comes to agriculture and other areas. public-private partnerships. can we institutionalize that? not entirely. not even close. if you have a strategy think about all of these different things.

what i just mentioned, if you think about how china has always operated on these principles you know how to hire a bullet, you don't. biotech gives the ability not to have to fire a bullet. many hundreds of soldiers soldiers might be killed and a shot was not fired. >> never good ground. thinking about the who, politics

should be out government should beat out. i look at china, did with me the country were viruses originate the country that will take responsibility, that is the defense and we are looking at the pandemic treaty. a lot of times they talk about equity. i'm not sort what's that supposed to mean. equitable as far as transparency and accountability. that's what i think equitable. who's out the drawer front.

partnership. we look at all the problems when something comes upon us as rapidly as a pandemic, should we have a scientific manufacturing reserve court ready to go to work in a moments notice? change manufacturing to fit the need. make sure these things are being adhered to. let's talk about medical countermeasures and think about when something like this

happens. >> i think looking into how we respond to the corporate pandemic both in the previous administration and current. there are certain things that can be set aside. whether the stockpile is for a nationwide event or regionalized part of conversation. we had a few other outbreaks, what we used to call monkeypox, bird flu and another outbreak

dealing with health and security related challenges. when there is an outbreak in africa americans go and respond so looking more broadly we have those blessings and things we can do better. thinking through exercises and places of who would be in charge. part of the challenge as not knowing what may pop up and

hopefully now they believe they are a national security agencies we are not focused now misconduct event. >> always have to follow the money available to put out there and they participate. it's very difficult to move around one account to another. maybe we are to be thinking about three divine emergency omb gets the ability to move money

from one agency to another quickly. you want them to turn around counteracting drunk very quickly large numbers at scale. in order to do that somebody has to kickstart them start with funds but culture is a great example. if they are going to be the ones from a they've got to get the money to fund software fixes it

dvr cash-strapped so there has to be a new approach to how we so government is just issuing instructions which has to do but also providing wherewithal for the instructions to follow. i'm just speaking from experience. so much of what we have done is reactionary and we are very fortunate in technology that allowed us to move quickly for the covid crisis. it also highlights the challenge of capacity and redundancy in

those medical supply chains. >> the government finding a way to can be allowing the private sector and de- risking it for him. thinking about the way in which we have this capacity. ready at a moments notice and we

are to be thinking about public private partnerships. and one that i advised in the past collects data from household and using software analytics it can predict whether there is no less that will occur in the community after ten days before. in is not a huge market opportunity. from the public sector got an exponentially better what is occurring across the country long before you hit the hospital city state we look at those players valuable technology we

could talk a little bit and use. does a very important country that's not allowed ended called taiwan. my understanding is they were picking up on social media and coming back from china. we picked up on a very fast and an idea early on, why not set up taiwan surveillance center of excellence in this diplomatic

nation not allowing taiwan with this response in the upper observation, operational warp speed evidence composition are allies that was much better. like health and who or another international organization to allocate.

and the chinese would have done it with the butter vaccine, they will loosely. >> i'm glad you brought up on the fence and when opportunity exists especially with the vaccine. and i don't understand that

federal so therefore the who is an organization. it is very clear through that process. be honest. in the region in the past few years and vietnam for example, the cdc worked with their cdc and they love us for what we did. he is able to protect our borders and concern about their sovereignty.

we barricade ourselves in, there's not enough door out and we have to go in that direction. going into the nda and another legislation "to have ideas and thoughts that would help benefit within this role of government effort. >> we have come up with a list of recommendations for both the nda.

the od was a.i. and biotech combined. a.i. is a tool so if you have a large language model, it's not going to mean something. they need to look at what that means. but they worry about this is a developing question about bio manufacturing and concern. and mild fauci and have something even if it works. you got to produce yale and go back to model t ford.

if you don't do that, you're not helping anybody. they aren't exactly. a better assessment you don't say. also, you need ongoing risk assessment over and over again today, tomorrow, next month, next year and finally assess what is going on.

... >> one of the possibility is we know that there's a big push for people to get into stem but getting it to stand without getting into biotech specifically doesn't really do the job for you. you need to have as many biotech experts as you possibly can. because the chinese are just putting them out in the thousands. our education system is great, and our products are great, our people. but we've got to get them directed into these fields. both by the way not just for the private sector but for government because government is

a consumer in some ways and it isn't always the educated consumer. >> okay great. i think in my mind, break it down and people come investment in infrastructure. so which really tickets to the importance of understanding not only the threat of the capabilities, right? we want to understand what is coming down the pike. and that comes down to having a strong technically proficient workforce that can understand these technologies but also the convergence of different kinds of technologies and impact that will have. i think that's what we're talking about when we're talking how do we use ai for the tool of discovery. it's look at her own infrastructure. i've come up with we can't protect but we don't have. and in a lot of ways especially coming back to the manufacturing peace and being able to do things at scale, we don't have

that capacity so really need to think about it as art of national security and part of our critical infrastructure. and we have to look at how do we compete? that will be important and the t put it out there that we shouldn't reward china's national champions. they don't act as normal companies. they get support -- they support and usher policies. they create and have ties back to the ccp. so that is something that we shouldn't reward both for market access as well as allowing them to be part of the development. >> i think quickly i would you say that aren't we in a position to detect a man-made or national threat across the u.s.

government? i share the congressman scott perry on w.h.o. w.h.o. i think one of the things we talk about medical countermeasures that's a lease in the draft that i saw is w.h.o. mandate receiving 20% of all of those medical countermeasures. and given the mismanagement not just covid and elsewhere but the w.h.o. that's not something i think the united states should be doing. the other part is both internal response and how will that, i think policy wise we are policy mechanisms. we have the nsc, with other parts of the white house that once you get into the full on a today response what would that look like. and then the comment about what you with our allies, i think having a conversation amongst allies because the w.h.o. is not focus on those and his focus on other things for some unknown reason. having an on the conversation with our allies and partners about how each of us are

prepared for these things and what we can do, whether it's putting some of those things outside of the united states so that we can work together to address some of these again because we're going to see more non-cooperative states that uncooperative states and how we dress that is going to be the important challenge going forward. >> i think from my perspective from an industry perspective tht goes back to the paradigm shift. the world leaders in software analytics and ai, and we as a country deserve to utilize that for our national security. finding a way to encourage and make people feel comfortable with software which is a very different process a lot of times in traditional is a big and important change. >> i am partial to the idea of being the anchor at the end of a joint biosurveillance center of excellence so we put someone up for american enterprise institute in taiwan.

and looks epidemic responses, gets cutting edge into the chinese labor and social media and so forth. i think that i did should be explored. >> thank you. >> with time for a few questions, if anyone in the audience has a question today, feel free to raise your hand. >> or on social media as well. >> see what a a great job youl did? anything on social media, dan, coming through? >> nothing that i can say. >> then i will just continue with this conversation that we were just having it. talk about frustration. we had i think 22 physician, dentist and pharmacists august 2 years ago reach out to the

secretary of defense, suggesting that the military take the opportunity to draw blood on every member of the military, to check them for antibodies and t-cells related to covid. get their history, were you back said, which vaccine did you get, when did you get it? did you have covid that you know of? when was at? and to get some idea about the longevity either from natural or from the vaccine itself and really gained a lot of knowledge. never got an answer, , kept pushing, kept pushing. and i copied one of the surgeon general, military research, et cetera. they draw blood on us all the time, i'm a soldier. we can do this and it would be a great tool for us to learn from. finally got a letter back from

the secretary's office, said the mandate has been lifted. wasn't a a question, the mand. it was a question on actually trying to learn something. these are the challenges we even have in congress. we kept pursuing it. finally got a letter saying well, we have done this and this and this study. could you give me a result of those? have gotten them. would you talk the whole of government response there's got to be some way someone that's quincy it's a good idea, bad idea, let's do it, let's not do it and it can't just buried somewhere in one of those dialogs. so a frustration for me. bottom line, detection, attribution, treatment. i would love, here's a viral sequence, plug it in, here's what the vaccine should look like and here's what your monoclonal antibodies look like and all your other treatments and do it just like that. any thoughts?

on that idea. >> well, i think, i would highlight come first of all highlight the sort of the ethereal which i think is the field of protein fielding prediction is advancing rapidly, right, that's one key step in thinking about therapeutics. there are many other things being enabled by software and ai that can speed the identification of these compounds and the testing and then the rapid manufacturing. you mention a number of times by the manufacturing at you. that's a critical enabler for us. i would also say actually based on what we have to collectively just in medical records, there is a lot of opportunity for harmonizing data and then mining it backwards to look at real-world evidence. at nih, for example, there's the increasingly collaborative which is data i believe from 2021

desha i will give you details come basically it is a large harmonized set of clinical data from people who had covid. it took software to first harmonize it and allowed to be searchable but since then there been one of the papers published giving new insights about covid. everything from physiological responses to things about kennedy, rural versus urban come what was better, what was worse. i think there's a lot of promise out there if we can apply the tools effectively. and again it's a shift in thinking a real paradigm shift. >> thank you. >> we can get into also reporting and sharing of data and logistics associated i think our military did a good job getting the vaccine out across the country. there were positives to all this for sure. i think it was

then some. but i think hopefully you can see the importance to our national liquor, to our national health security, and that congress need to keep work on these issues in a detailed way. and with come in conjunction with our agencies, not just having an oversight over the agencies. i think only to have this back and forth. never talk about congress, congress is a force voice of the american people. we go outside the beltway. we go home and we deal with the people in our district and around the country that deal with the issues. a member of the intelligence committee and the pandemic subcommittee, we've got a lot of work to do. want to continue to get input from you. because this is where looking for a path forward and this is what we talk about today. what are some of the solutions at least to try to implement. so again thank you all for joining us here today. what you think aei again.

this was a great help today and appreciate y'all taking the time to be here. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

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