1Day Sooner

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Quick Assessment

Dimension	Assessment	Evidence
Focus Area	Pandemic preparedness + biosecurity policy	Human challenge trials, indoor air quality (far-UVC), advance market commitments, policy advocacy¹
Funding	Well-funded from diverse sources	≈$12.8M cumulative (March 2020 - July 2025); major donors include Coefficient Giving, Founders Pledge, Schmidt Futures²
Policy Influence	Growing	SB 1308 California advocacy; Operation Warp Speed 2.0 conferences; FY2025 appropriations advocacy³⁴
Team	Small, mission-driven	Led by co-founders Josh Morrison (President) and Sophie Rose; ≈10-15 staff across multiple program areas⁵
Key Output	Air safety research with Rethink Priorities	Found that indoor air quality interventions could reduce measles-like pathogen transmission by 68%⁶
Key Concern	Mission drift from original focus	Expanded from challenge trial advocacy to broad pandemic preparedness portfolio¹

Overview

1Day Sooner is a 501(c)(3) public health nonprofit founded in March 2020 to advocate for human challenge trials as a means to accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development. The organization has since expanded into a broader pandemic preparedness and biosecurity policy organization, working across four main areas: human challenge studies, indoor air quality interventions, vaccine development policy (including advance market commitments), and pandemic preparedness advocacy.¹

The name “1Day Sooner” reflects the organization’s founding thesis: that even getting a vaccine one day sooner could save thousands of lives. By June 2020, volunteers from 162 countries had signed up through the organization to participate in potential COVID-19 challenge trials.⁷

The organization operates alongside a separately registered 501(c)(4) entity, 1Day Action, which handles political advocacy work. Open Philanthropy provided $1 million to 1Day Action.²

History

Founding and COVID-19 Challenge Trial Advocacy (March-December 2020)

1Day Sooner was co-founded by Josh Morrison and Sophie Rose in March 2020, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Morrison, a Harvard Law graduate who had previously founded kidney donation advocacy group Waitlist Zero and the Rikers Debate Project, was thinking of starting an advocacy group for human challenge trials when he came across an unpublished literature review about COVID-19 human challenge studies that Rose, a Stanford biology graduate, had co-authored. He invited her to join the effort.⁷⁸

The organization quickly attracted public attention and volunteer signups. Open Philanthropy provided initial funding of $500,000 in May 2020 (via Waitlist Zero) and $600,000 in November 2020 for general support.⁹¹⁰

1Day Sooner’s advocacy for COVID-19 challenge trials was met with both support and opposition among scientists and bioethicists. Proponents argued that challenge trials could dramatically accelerate vaccine development, while critics raised concerns about deliberately infecting volunteers with a novel pathogen.⁷

UK Challenge Trial Success (2021-2022)

The UK became the first country to authorize a COVID-19 human challenge trial in 2021, partly influenced by 1Day Sooner’s advocacy and volunteer organizing. Results from the UK trial were published in February 2022, providing novel insights into COVID-19 infection dynamics.¹¹

Expansion to Pandemic Preparedness (2022-Present)

Following the initial challenge trial advocacy, 1Day Sooner broadened its mission to encompass pandemic preparedness more generally. Key expansions included:

Indoor Air Quality program led by Gavriel Kleinwaks, focusing on germicidal UV technology
Operation Warp Speed 2.0 conferences and white papers on institutionalizing pandemic response capabilities
Advance Market Commitments research and advocacy for pandemic countermeasure development
Hepatitis C challenge studies advocacy and volunteer recruitment
1Day Africa program directed by Zach Kafuko
Biosecurity considerations for challenge trials research published in academic venues¹¹²

FTX Funding and Return (2022-2023)

1Day Sooner received approximately $400,000 from the FTX Foundation before its 2022 bankruptcy. The organization returned these funds to bankruptcy proceedings by December 2023.²

Core Programs

Human Challenge Studies (CHIMs)

1Day Sooner’s original and continuing focus is advocating for controlled human infection models (CHIMs) as a tool to accelerate vaccine and therapeutic development. The organization:¹

Recruits and organizes volunteer cohorts for challenge trials
Partners with academic institutions on challenge trial ethics and methodology
Sponsored a report with the UK Pandemic Ethics Accelerator on “The Ethics of Controlled Human Infection Model Studies for Mitigating Pandemic Risks”
Published biosecurity analysis of challenge trial risks in BMJ Open (February 2025), examining onward transmission, information hazards, and challenge agent manufacturing risks¹³

Hepatitis C Challenge Studies: A major current priority, with the potential to unlock more than $10 million in NIH funding for hepatitis C vaccine development. Hundreds of people worldwide have signed up expressing interest in participating. A workshop is planned for 2026.¹⁴

Indoor Air Quality and Germicidal UV

In collaboration with Rethink Priorities, 1Day Sooner produced the influential “Air Safety to Combat Global Catastrophic Biorisks” report, which found that mass deployment of indoor air quality interventions (ventilation, filtration, and ultraviolet germicidal irradiation) could reduce transmission of a measles-like pathogen by 68%. This represents approximately one-third of the total effort needed to reduce pathogen transmission by 98%.⁶

The report identified germicidal UV (GUV) technology, particularly far-UVC, as the most promising intervention because it can achieve considerably higher equivalent air changes per hour by directly inactivating pathogens. Key bottlenecks include lack of clear standards, implementation costs, and regulatory barriers. Blueprint Biosecurity works on the same technology from a research and deployment angle.⁶

California SB 1308 Advocacy

In 2024, California SB 1308 proposed banning ozone-emitting air cleaning devices, which as written would have unintentionally encompassed far-UVC technology. 1Day Sooner was the only nonprofit to produce a public statement opposing the bill’s impact on GUV research. The organization:³

Submitted public comments to the Senate committee
Traveled to Sacramento to meet with Senate staffers
Presented public comments at the committee hearing
Collaborated with the Far UVC Coalition on amendments

The campaign highlighted the distinction between existing ozone-emitting electrostatic air cleaners and the emerging generation of germicidal UV technology.³

Operation Warp Speed 2.0

1Day Sooner has hosted multiple “Operation Warp Speed 2.0” conferences, convening more than 80 health, biosecurity, and research leaders to discuss how to institutionalize the successes of the original Operation Warp Speed for future pandemic response.⁴

The organization published a white paper with policy recommendations focused on:¹⁵

Regulatory authorization reform: Streamlining approval processes for pandemic countermeasures
Advance market commitments (AMCs): Government guarantees to purchase vaccines/treatments at set prices upon approval, incentivizing private-sector development before pandemics strike
Institutional capacity: Building permanent government infrastructure for rapid medical countermeasure development

The AMC concept is central to 1Day Sooner’s pandemic preparedness strategy. An AMC circumvents the market failure problem by guaranteeing a profitable market before a vaccine’s development, ensuring that developers’ efforts will pay off while keeping prices reasonable.¹⁵

Pandemic Insurance Fund

1Day Sooner campaigns for an internationally administered pandemic insurance fund, composed of donations from wealthier countries, to be deployed in the event of a future pandemic for low- and middle-income countries.¹

Team and Leadership

Leadership

Josh Morrison

Co-Founder & President

Sophie Rose

Co-Founder

Julia (surname undisclosed)

Chief Operating Officer

Gavriel Kleinwaks

Director, Indoor Air Quality

Zach Kafuko

Director, 1Day Africa

Danny Toomey

Lead Investigator

Board of Directors

Member	Affiliation
Stanley Plotkin	Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, University of Pennsylvania and Wistar Institute
Dan Wikler	Mary B. Saltonstall Professor of Population Ethics, Harvard University
Madeleine Thompson	Board member

Josh Morrison’s Role at the Federation of American Scientists

Josh Morrison also holds a position at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), where 1Day Sooner has co-published pandemic preparedness policy proposals including “How to Replicate the Success of Operation Warp Speed.”¹⁶

Funding

Cumulative Funding (March 2020 - July 2025): ≈$12.8 million

Donor	Amount	Notes
Coefficient Giving (Open Philanthropy)	$4,600,000	Largest single funder; OP rebranded to Coefficient Giving in Nov 2025
Founders Pledge	$1,578,034	EA-aligned funder
Individual Donors	$1,220,717	Aggregated individual contributions
Schmidt Futures	$1,025,000	Technology philanthropy
Digital Harbor Foundation	$1,000,000
Rain Water Charitable Foundation	$750,000
Survival and Flourishing Fund	$590,000	EA-aligned funder
Emergent Ventures	$300,000	Tyler Cowen’s grant program
David and Lucille Packard Foundation	$300,000
Smaller grants (<$50K each)	Various	CEA, BCBS Massachusetts, CareQuest, Point32Health, Harvard Pilgrim, UChicago Market Shaping Accelerator
Total	≈$12,847,094

Open Philanthropy Funding

Open Philanthropy (now Coefficient Giving) has provided ≈$4.6M to 1Day Sooner’s 501(c)(3) — roughly 36% of cumulative funding — plus $1M separately to 1Day Action (the 501(c)(4) entity). The $4.6M Coefficient Giving line in the table above represents the total from OP, which includes these identified grants:⁹¹⁰¹⁷

$500,000 for general support (May 2020, via Waitlist Zero)
$600,000 for general support (November 2020)
$3,000,000 for general support (2023)

Financial Transparency

1Day Sooner publishes detailed financial information including cumulative funding by donor, IRS Form 990 filings (available for 2020-2023), and explicit disclosure that the organization has no pharmaceutical company funding and no financial stake in studies promoted or therapies involved.²

Relationship to AI Safety and the EA Community

1Day Sooner has strong connections to the effective altruism community:

Open Philanthropy/Coefficient Giving is the largest funding source
Rethink Priorities collaboration on the air safety report
Survival and Flourishing Fund and Emergent Ventures grants
EA Forum presence with regular updates and funding requests
Josh Morrison has posted on the EA Forum about hepatitis C challenge trial funding opportunities
Gavriel Kleinwaks has published on the EA Forum about indoor air quality program direction

The organization’s work on pandemic preparedness connects to AI safety concerns through the bioweapons misuse pathway: improved pandemic infrastructure (surveillance, countermeasures, indoor air quality) provides defense-in-depth against both naturally emerging and engineered pathogens, including those potentially enabled by AI.⁶

Criticisms and Limitations

Mission Scope Expansion

1Day Sooner has expanded significantly from its original narrow focus on challenge trial advocacy to a broad pandemic preparedness portfolio. While this diversification addresses important problems, it raises questions about organizational comparative advantage and focus.

Challenge Trial Impact Debate

The counterfactual impact of 1Day Sooner’s COVID-19 challenge trial advocacy is debated. The UK challenge trial proceeded, but conventional vaccine development through Operation Warp Speed delivered vaccines before challenge trials could have meaningfully accelerated the process. The organization’s value proposition has shifted accordingly toward future pandemic preparedness.⁷

Small Scale Relative to Problem

With ≈$12.8M in cumulative funding and a small team, 1Day Sooner operates at a scale far below what would be needed to meaningfully address pandemic preparedness infrastructure gaps, particularly for interventions like mass deployment of germicidal UV technology.

Key Uncertainties

Key Questions (5)

Can far-UVC technology achieve regulatory approval and mass deployment before the next pandemic?
Will advance market commitments for pandemic countermeasures gain sufficient political support for implementation?
Is 1Day Sooner's broad pandemic preparedness portfolio more impactful than a narrower focus on challenge trial advocacy?
Can the hepatitis C challenge studies program unlock significant NIH funding for vaccine development?
How does 1Day Sooner's impact compare to other biosecurity organizations like SecureBio or NTI | bio?

Sources

1Day Sooner - What We Do - Program overview ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶
1Day Sooner - Finances & Transparency - Detailed funding disclosure ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Retrospective on California SB 1308 Campaign - EA Forum - SB 1308 advocacy ↩ ↩² ↩³
Operation Warp Speed 2.0 Conference - Conference overview ↩ ↩²
1Day Sooner Team - Staff listing ↩
Air Safety to Combat Global Catastrophic Biorisks - Rethink Priorities - Air safety research ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
1Day Sooner - Wikipedia - Organizational history ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴
Josh Morrison LinkedIn - Background ↩
Open Philanthropy - 1Day Sooner General Support May 2020 - Initial grant ↩ ↩²
Open Philanthropy - 1Day Sooner General Support November 2020 - Second grant ↩ ↩²
STAT News - COVID-19 Challenge Trial Results - UK trial results ↩
1Day Sooner - Pandemic Preparedness - Expanded mission ↩
BMJ Open - Analysis of Controlled Human Infection Studies - Biosecurity considerations publication ↩
EA Forum - What 1Day Sooner Would Do with Your Marginal Dollar: Hepatitis C - Hep C program ↩
Operation Warp Speed 2.0 White Paper - Policy recommendations ↩ ↩²
Federation of American Scientists - How to Replicate Operation Warp Speed - FAS publication ↩
Open Philanthropy - 1Day Sooner General Support 2023 - 2023 grant ↩