Mark Wheelis

Deadly Cultures: Biological Weapons Since 1945.

Preface Abbreviations 1. Historical Context and Overview Mark Wheelis, Lajos Rozsa, and Malcolm Dando 2. The US Biological Weapons Program John Ellis van Courtland Moon 3. The UK Biological Weapons Program Brian Balmer 4. The Canadian Biological Weapons Program and the Tripartite Alliance Donald Avery 5. The French Biological Weapons Program Olivier Lepick 6. The Soviet Biological Weapons Program John Hart 7. Biological Weapons in Non-Soviet Warsaw Pact Countries Lajos Rozsa and Kathryn Nixdorff 8. The Iraqi Biological Weapons Program Graham Pearson 9. The South African Biological Weapons Program ChandrE Gould and Alastair Hay 10. Anticrop Biological Weapons Programs Simon Whitby 11. Antianimal Biological Weapons Programs Piers Millet 12. Midspectrum Incapacitant Programs Malcolm Dando and Martin Furmanski 13. Allegations of Biological Weapons Use Martin Furmanski and Mark Wheelis 14. Terrorist Use of Biological Weapons Mark Wheelis and Masaaki Sugishima 15. The Politics of Biological Disarmament Marie Chevrier 16. Legal Constraints on Biological Weapons Nicholas Sims 17. Analysis and Implications Malcolm Dando, Graham Pearson, Lajos Rozsa, Julian Perry Robinson, and Mark Wheelis Appendix. The Biological Weapons Convention Notes Contributors Index

Biotechnology and biochemical weapons

Dr. Mark Wheelis is Senior Lecturer in Microbiology at the University of California (UC), Davis, where he has been teaching in the field since 1970 and is also Director of the Program in Nature and Culture. He has authored numerous pieces on the history of biological warfare and the control of biological weapons, including two chapters on biological warfare in Biological and Toxin Weapons: Research, Development and Use from the Middle Ages to 1945 (Oxford University, 1999). Dr. Wheelis has also developed a website devoted to the threat of agricultural biowarfare and bioterrorism for the Federation of American Scientists.

Neurobiology: A case study of the imminent militarization of biology

The revolution in biology, including advances in genomics, will lead to rapid progress in the treatment of mental illness by advancing the discovery of highly specific ligands that affect specific neurological pathways. The status of brain science and its potential for military application to enhance soldier performance, to develop new weapons and to facilitate interrogation are discussed. If such applications are pursued, they will also expand the options available to torturers, dictators and terrorists. Several generic approaches to containing the malign applications of biology are shown, and it is concluded that success or failure in doing so will be significantly dependent on the active involvement of the scientific and medical communities.

Biotechnology and chemical weapons control

Biotechnology is revolutionizing the way new drugs are discovered, from a substantially empirical art to a rational, predictive process in which targets of drugs are selected on the basis of known physiology, then ligands that can bind to these targets are designed. The same process could be used to identify promising new chemical weapons (CW) agents, which would be synthesized from unscheduled precursors. Biotechnology thus has the potential of fueling CW proliferation. It can also aid the development of novel nonlethal chemical agents, the development of which could have a number of negative consequences for CW control.

Characterization of a benzoate permease mutant of Pseudomonas putida

A spontaneous mutant of Pseudomonas putida (PRS 2017) has been isolated which is incapable of growth on benzoate, does not induce the enzymes of the catechol branch of the β-ketoadipate pathway when grown in the presence of benzoate, cannot accumulate radioactively labeled benzoate, yet grows well with mandelate as sole source of carbon and energy. This strain apparently lacks a benzoate permease, which in the wild type shows a Kmof about 0.1 mM for benzoate, is inducible, and is not under the control of the regulatory system which governs the induction of the enzymes of the catechol branch of the β-ketoadapate pathway. The lesion in PRS 2017 is apparently single site and maps near other genes governing benzoate dissimilation.

Energy conservation and pyridine nucleotide reduction in chemoautotrophic bacteria: a thermodynamic analysis

Respiratory and reverse electron transport by chemoautotrophic bacteria have been formulated in chemiosmotic terms. A thermodynamic analysis of this model, assuming equilibrium conditions, indicates that respiration by most chemoautotrophs can generate a protonmotive force easily sufficient to drive both ATP synthesis and reverse electron transport.

Regulation of the synthesis of enzymes of tryptophan dissimilation in Acinetobacter calcoaceticus

SummaryAcinetobacter calcoaceticus dissimilates tryptophan via the β-ketoadipate pathway. The first enzyme, tryptophan oxygenase (l-tryptophan: oxygen oxidoreductase; EC 1.13.1.12), is substrate-induced by tryptophan. The second two enzymes, formamidase (aryl-formylamine amidohydrolase; EC 3.5.1.9) and kynureninase (l-kynurenine hydrolase; EC 3.7.1.3), are induced by the next intermediate, kynurenine. The last enzyme specific to tryptophan dissimilation, anthranilate oxidase, is substrate induced. This inductive pattern is in marked contrast to the extensive coordinacy of enzyme synthesis characteristic of the remainder of the β-ketoadipate pathway.