esearching the weapons of the future: genetically modified bioweapons

[rossana <rossana at comodinoposta.org>]

Researching the weapons of the future: genetically modified bioweapons

By Andy Oppenheimer

Advances in nanotechnology, genetics and nuclear isomers are permitting the 
production of a new generation of unconventional weapons.

As one of the most rapidly moving areas of scientific research today, 
biotechnology presents the most immediate emerging threat for weapons 
development. The revolution in genetic modification (GM) techniques could 
create even deadlier strains of disease and provide cheaper methods of 
development, as well as blurring the dividing line between curing disease 
and causing it. Terrorists and nation-states with adequate biological 
expertise could capitalise on the GM revolution using minimal resources and 
equipment. Unscrupulous scientists lending or selling their services to 
terrorist groups could also exploit many advances taking place at medical 
and biological institutes as civilian research and development.

An obvious conclusion is that smallpox, anthrax and other diseases are 
deadly enough without being modified. While smallpox itself is believed to 
kill 30 per cent of the people it infects, it is not likely to affect 
vaccinated populations; a GM smallpox virus, however, that cannot be 
countered by vaccination would doubtless be much more lethal.

GM weapons are not new. The Soviet civilian biological warfare agency, 
Biopreparat, from 1973 experimented with various harmful and 
antidote-resistant organisms, including a combination of smallpox with 
Venezuelan equine encephalitis, known as 'Veepox'. Russia also developed 
'Obolensk' anthrax - a strain resistant to both vaccines and antibiotics.

With the application of GM techniques, up to 100 times more pathogens or 
toxins could be produced per cell than by naturally occurring strains. It 
would be possible to insert genes into infectious micro-organisms to 
increase their antibiotic resistance, virulence and environmental 
stability. For example, the gene for antibiotic resistance could be removed 
from the notorious hospital 'superbug,' staphylococcus aureus, which is 
antibiotic-resistant. This could then be transferred into a far more 
dangerous organism like the plague, thereby making plague, which in its 
bubonic form is curable, extremely difficult to treat.

One of the problems of creating and delivering a biological weapon is 
maintaining its survival once it has been dispersed. The agents in many 
existing bioweapons do not spread easily or at all. Bioagents could be 
genetically modified to have enhanced hardiness to facilitate delivery and 
dissemination and to increase infectivity. Making a pathogen survive longer 
under specified environmental conditions, and be difficult or impossible to 
detect, may soon be possible.

14 September 2004