Blueprint Biosecurity

Quick Assessment

Overview

Blueprint Biosecurity is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 2023 by Jake Swett, dedicated to achieving breakthroughs in pandemic prevention. The organization creates detailed, actionable roadmaps—called "Blueprints"—for accelerating the most promising defensive technologies against airborne pathogens, then works to remove the key bottlenecks to their deployment.¹

Blueprint occupies a distinctive niche in the biosecurity landscape by focusing on physical and engineering-based defenses rather than surveillance, screening, or policy interventions. Their three program areas—far-UVC germicidal light, next-generation PPE, and glycol vapor air disinfection—are all pathogen-agnostic interventions that work regardless of whether a threat is natural, accidental, or deliberately engineered.¹

The organization is recommended by Founders Pledge as a top biosecurity charity, with evaluators noting its "significant ability to absorb more funding" and focus on neglected defensive technologies.⁸ See the Biosecurity Interventions overview for how Blueprint fits within the broader intervention portfolio.

History

Founding (2023)

Jake Swett founded Blueprint Biosecurity after working on the Apollo Program for Biodefense, a report by the Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense published in the wake of COVID-19. The President's former Science Advisor credited Swett's work as inspiration for the American Pandemic Preparedness Plan and an $88 billion federal budget request.²

Before founding Blueprint, Swett earned a PhD in Nanotechnology from Oxford (studying molecular diagnostics and biosecurity innovations), worked as a Research Scientist at Lockheed Martin's Advanced Technology Center, and co-founded altLabs, a research nonprofit focused on biosecurity technologies. He held fellowships at the Foresight Institute, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, and the Council on Strategic Risks.²

Growth (2024-2025)

The organization grew rapidly from 4 employees in its first year to approximately 16 staff by 2025, with dedicated directors for each program area. Revenue in 2023 (first year) was $2.58M against expenses of $566K, reflecting the early build-out phase.⁵

Key Programs

Far-UVC Germicidal Light

Blueprint's flagship program investigates far-UVC light (200-235nm wavelength, typically 222nm) as a pathogen-agnostic defense for occupied indoor spaces. Far-UVC can inactivate airborne pathogens while remaining safe for continuous human exposure—the light is absorbed by dead skin cells before reaching living tissue.⁷

Blueprint for Far-UVC: A 266-page comprehensive investigation published in June 2025 (preprint March 2025), authored by Richard D. Williamson after nearly two years of research and hundreds of expert interviews. Key finding: cost-benefit analysis suggests 10-to-1 to potentially 30-290x benefit-cost ratios depending on context.⁷

EXHALE Program (Exposure of Human Aerosols to far-UVC Light for pathogen Elimination): Up to $1M in grants to quantify far-UVC effectiveness against viral pathogens in real human-generated respiratory aerosols. Awards of ≈$100K each distributed through milestone-based contracts.⁹

AIR Program (Airborne Infection Resilience): An ambitious five-year research initiative announced March 2025, with three workstreams:¹⁰

1. Efficacy and Effectiveness — Bioaerosol chamber studies, computational modeling, and the first large-scale RCT across ≈50 real-world settings
2. Safety — Human and animal studies to verify far-UVC exposure limits; indoor air chemistry measurements
3. Communications and Deployment — Implementation protocols and a National Academies consensus study

Next-Generation PPE

The PPE Blueprint (June 2024), produced in partnership with Gryphon Scientific (now Deloitte), found that "the PPE ecosystem cannot produce a sufficient amount of high quality respiratory PPE to stand up to future pandemics." Focuses on reusable respirators, stockpiling strategies, and supply chain resilience. Led by PPE Director Victoria Slaughter.¹¹

A supplementary report, "Towards a Theory of Pandemic-Proof PPE," followed in January 2025.¹¹

Glycol Vapor Air Disinfection

Blueprint evaluates propylene glycol, dipropylene glycol, and triethylene glycol as emergency air disinfection tools. Key findings from historical research: 1,000+ fold pathogen reduction in an hour in lab studies; a 1941-1944 healthcare study showed 90% infection reduction in glycol-treated wards. The EPA found "no significant evidence for negative health concerns" at disinfection concentrations. Estimated cost: 10-50 cents per day for a 1,000 sq ft room.¹²

Team

Other key staff include Richard Williamson (Senior Fellow, authored far-UVC Blueprint), Sami Leonardo (Communications Director), Stephen Martin (Senior Researcher, 28+ years at CDC/NIOSH), and Darryl Angel (Researcher, PhD Environmental Engineering, Yale).⁵

Funded Research

Blueprint awards grants to academic institutions for targeted research:

Funding

Financial snapshot (2023): Revenue $2.58M, expenses $566K, assets $2.04M. Executive compensation: Jake Swett, $83,333.⁵

Blueprint also operates Blueprint Biosecurity Action, a separate entity for lobbying, which spent $170,000 on federal lobbying through September 2025.⁶

Relationship to AI Safety

Blueprint Biosecurity addresses the Defend pillar of the Delay/Detect/Defend framework—building physical defenses that work regardless of the threat source, including AI-enabled bioweaponsRiskBioweapons RiskComprehensive synthesis of AI-bioweapons evidence through early 2026, including the FRI expert survey finding 5x risk increase from AI capabilities (0.3% → 1.5% annual epidemic probability), Anthro...Quality: 91/100. Far-UVC, PPE, and air disinfection are "last line" defenses: even if AI helps attackers design novel pathogens that evade synthesis screening and surveillance, physical environmental defenses can still limit transmission.

This makes Blueprint's work complementary to organizations focused on Delay (SecureBioOrganizationSecureBioA biosecurity nonprofit applying the Delay/Detect/Defend framework to protect against catastrophic pandemics, including AI-enabled biological threats, through wastewater surveillance (Nucleic Acid ...Quality: 65/100/SecureDNAOrganizationSecureDNAA Swiss nonprofit foundation providing free, privacy-preserving DNA synthesis screening software using novel cryptographic protocols. Co-founded by Kevin Esvelt and Turing Award winner Andrew Yao, ...Quality: 60/100) and Detect (NAO/wastewater surveillance). 1Day SoonerOrganization1Day SoonerA pandemic preparedness nonprofit originally founded to advocate for COVID-19 human challenge trials, now working on indoor air quality (germicidal UV), advance market commitments for vaccines, hep...Quality: 60/100's indoor air quality program, including their influential air safety report with Rethink Priorities, addresses similar problems from a policy advocacy angle.

Limitations

• Far-UVC regulatory gap: No binding regulatory standards exist worldwide for safe far-UVC dosage as of 2025—a significant barrier to deployment¹³
• Young organization: Founded 2023, still building track record and institutional capacity
• AIR Program unfunded: The five-year research initiative currently has "no funding source for this scale of far-UVC research"¹⁰
• Narrow focus: Concentrates on airborne pathogen transmission; does not address foodborne, waterborne, or contact transmission routes

Sources