Researchers warn biotech advances could be misused by ...( The same scientific advances in biotech...)

The same scientific advances in biotechnology, genetics, and medicine that are intended to improve life could also be used to develop biological weapons capable of causing mass destruction, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. They urge governments and the scientific community to adopt a system of checks and balances to prevent the misappropriation of scientific discoveries and technology. Their analysis is outlined in an article published in the January 2003 edition of the journal Biosecurity and Bioterrorism.

The Hopkins researchers call the potential misapplication of science the "Persephone effect," named after the Greek myth of an innocent girl who was kidnapped and forced to share her time between Hades and Earth. The myth accounts for the change of the seasons and the annual cycle of growth and decay.

"Biology, medicine, agriculture, and other life sciences were always considered the 'good' sciences, but like Persephone they could be used to bring death and destruction in the form of biological weapons," explained lead author Gigi Kwik, PhD, a fellow with the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies and assistant scientist in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

According to Dr. Kwik and her colleagues, recent advances in aerosol technology, microbiology, and genetics are areas of concern. In the article, they noted that the same aerosol technology used to develop inhaled insulin for the treatment of diabetes could also be used to push anthrax or other large molecules past the lung's immune system and deep into the airways where they can cause disease. Antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria help scientists determine which antibiotic therapies will be most effective in treating an illness, but former Soviet bioweapons builders are suspected using this technology to
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Contact: Tim Parsons or Kenna Brigham
paffairs@jhsph.edu
410-955-6878
Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
20-Dec-2002

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