Assistant Research Professor, Centre for Pandemic Risk Management at CRASSH and Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge

Dr Lalitha Sundaram is an Assistant Research Professor at the Centre for Pandemic Risk Management at CRASSH and at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge.

Her academic research is in the area of biological security, with a particular emphasis on regulation and governance. She investigates risks – real or perceived – surrounding emerging biotechnologies such as synthetic biology and their management through national and international mechanisms such as the Biological Weapons Convention. Her current projects are on on evaluating pandemic tabletop exercises, One Health Biosecurity and investigating the intersection of biosecurity with Artificial Intelligence.

Previously, Lalitha worked within the University of Cambridge and Edinburgh’s Arsenic Biosensor Collaboration where she developed strategy to take this novel synthetic biology product from bench to field, focusing on the international regulatory landscape and Responsible Research and Innovation. Following this, she held a fellowship at King’s College London investigating the opportunities and challenges facing emerging biotechnologies seeking to tackle global health challenges. Lalitha’s PhD research, also at the University of Cambridge, used a combination of bioinformatic, next-generation sequencing and molecular biology tools to explore host-cell metabolic and microRNA changes following infection by the pathogenic parasite Toxoplasma gondii.

Lalitha is a recent UKRI Policy Fellow, seconded part-time to the Arms Control and Disarmament Research Unit at the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office. She also sits on the UK Engineering Biology Responsible Innovation Advisory Panel (formerly the Biosecurity Leadership Council), convened by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and is a Postdoctoral Affiliate at Jesus College.