Dr. David Relman of Stanford and Dr. Kevin Esvelt of MIT — two of the most respected voices in U.S. biosecurity — will co-chair BioRadar's Scientific Advisory Board and help lead the science behind its “biological weather service” early-warning platform
BOSTON – Sept. 29, 2026 – BioRadar PBC, a biological intelligence company building an early-warning platform designed to detect biological threats that conventional surveillance miss, today announced that Dr. David Relman of Stanford University and Dr. Kevin Esvelt of MIT will serve as Co-Chairs of the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. As Co-Chairs, they will guide BioRadar's scientific direction, advise the founding team, and help recruit additional members of the Scientific Advisory Board as the company builds its biological early-warning platform.
“Having the two best scientists on this topic, David and Kevin, will help us build an extraordinary tool that will make biointelligence a reality for our nation and the world,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, Former White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator and Co-Founder of BioRadar.
Leading Voices in Biosecurity
Relman and Esvelt are leading figures in biosecurity, infectious disease and biological risk whose work has helped shape both the science and policy surrounding biological threats.
Relman is the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor in Medicine and Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University and Chief of Infectious Diseases at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. He was a founding member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and most recently served as Senior Advisor in the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy.
Esvelt is an Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab and director of the Sculpting Evolution group. He pioneered the development of CRISPR-based gene drives and has become a leading researcher on catastrophic biological risk, early-warning systems, and technologies designed to strengthen society’s ability to prevent and respond to biological threats.
Built Around Scientific Rigor
For BioRadar, scientific rigor means more than detecting a signal – it means knowing whether that signal can be trusted.
“BioRadar will ultimately succeed only if the biological intelligence we produce is rigorous enough that public-health and national-security leaders can trust it and act on it,” said Jha. “Doing it well is ultimately a science problem — and there's no one better suited to solving it than David and Kevin.”
“A signal by itself isn't intelligence,” said Dr. Nikki Romanik, former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy (OPPR), and Co-Founder of BioRadar. “Understanding whether it is meaningful, how confident we should be in it, and whether it warrants attention requires extraordinary scientific precision. Drs. Relman and Esvelt will help us bring that capability to the platform.”
“This team understands both sides of this problem: the science required to identify emerging biological threats and the realities facing decision-makers who have to respond to them,” said Relman. “BioRadar is taking seriously the challenge of producing biological intelligence that is scientifically rigorous, timely, and useful. I’m honored to help guide that effort and build the Scientific Advisory Board around it.”
“We are starting to see real progress on the detection side of this problem,” said Esvelt. “The harder part —the part that determines whether we can protect people -- is translating that data into something decision-makers can trust and act on. That's the gap BioRadar is built to close, and it's why I am excited to help build the science behind it.”
BioRadar is building a biological weather service: a system that integrates environmental, clinical, behavioral and other data to identify emerging biological threats and give decision-makers earlier situational awareness. The platform is currently live in a pilot program, and the company plans to share additional updates as the platform develops.
About BioRadar
Powered by AI, BioRadar is a biological intelligence company building an early-warning platform designed to identify biological activity and threats that targeted surveillance may miss. The platform combines broad biological sensing with clinical, syndromic, behavioral, public-health and other signals to establish location-specific baselines, identify meaningful changes and provide decision-makers with context around what deserves attention. BioRadar was founded by Ashish Jha, former White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator, and Nikki Romanik, former Deputy Director of the White House Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy. More information is available at www.bioradar.com.