Dr. Jacob Beal, an Engineering Fellow at RTX BBN Technologies, is the lead developer of FAST-NA Scanner (https://bbn.com/fastna), an adaptation of signature-based malware scanning to DNA synthesis biosecurity screening now being used in the DNA synthesis industry. Dr. Beal also represents BBN to the International Gene Synthesis Consortium (IGSC), helps maintain the IGSC's Regulated Pathogen Database, and co-leads the Sequence Biosecurity Risk Consortium (SBRC), an effort to establish international standards for testing biosecurity sequence screening systems, and is organizing efforts to respond to emergent AI-driven biosecurity threats. Dr. Beal is also known for his work in other areas of synthetic biology, including development of standards for representation and communication of biological designs and experiments, methods for calibrated flow cytometry, precision analysis and design of genetic regulatory networks, and engineering of biological information processing devices.

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