// NATURE NEWS — SPAZIO & SCIENZA
Biosecurity must protect human functional capacity
Search author on:
PubMed
Google Scholar
Your News feature on artificial-intelligence-enabled biological threats asks how the capability to design such threats should reshape biosecurity (see Nature 653, 344–347; 2026). Yet a biological event need not cause mass death to compromise the functional capacity of a nation. Severe and very severe ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome) provide a natural warning. People with this condition are often housebound or bedbound, dependent on care and sometimes intolerant of sensory stimulation. COVID-19 also exposed post-infectious disability at population scale. These conditions are not models of attack; they show that there is difference between survival and functional security.
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
AI can design viruses, toxins and other bioweapons. How worried should we be?
AI could pose pandemic-scale biosecurity risks. Here’s how to make it safer
Losing your way of life to climate change matters — and we need a way to measure it
Scalable near-real-time Bayesian phylogenetics for outbreaks with Delphy
Nasal vaccines could stop pandemics before they begin