Legionella Pneumophilia

Biowarfare: 
    In 2002, Eckard Wimmer and researchers at the State University of New York at Stony Brook built a functioning poliovirus using a genetic sequence obtained off the Internet and mail-order oligonucleotides (machine-synthesized DNA fragments about 100-400 bases in length) from commercial DNA synthesis companies. Wimmer warned that the technology to synthesized the much larger genome of smallpox would be possible within 15 years. However, it became feasible considerably sooner when, in 2004, George Church at Harvard University announced that his group had built a DNA synthesizer with the capability to produce a smallpox genome of approximately 186,000 bases in only 15 runs.
    Nowadays, the equipment and reagents to synthesize genes are available on eBay and other online marketplaces for used scientific equipment. A used DNA synthesizer costs around $5,000-$10,000. Gene synthesis equipment enables the creation of designer chimeras, organisms whose normal pathogenicity has been enhanced by the addition of new genes. Ken alibek, a Soviet defector and former director of the Soviet Biopreparat, in his book, Biohazard, described hearing a young Soviet scientist employed by the Biopreparat discuss his work in which he had succeeded in inserting human genes for neuroeffectors into bacteria. Alibek wrote, "The room was absolutely silent. We all recognized the implications of what the scientist had achieved. A new class of weapons  had been found. For the first time, we would be able to produce weapons based on chemical substances produce naturally by the human body. These could damage the nervous system, alter moods, trigger psychological changes, and even kill."
    Representative of this research was the work of Sergei Popov. Popov, a former Soviet bioweoponeer who defected to the Britain in 1992, designed organisms to trigger autoimmune responses while he was employed at Vector Laboratories in the former Soviet Union. The aim was to trick the body's defenses into self-destruction, as happens slowly in diseases such as lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis or more suddenly as in the case of analphylactic shock. "Sometimes, just small, very tiny quantities of foreign substances are enough to make the immune response quite devastating," he said. His team modified Legionella pneumophilia, the causative agent of Legionaire's disease, by adding fragments of myelin protein, the coating on human nerve fibers, to induce multiple schlerosis, and tested it on guinea pigs. Initially the animals showed signs of a mild pneumonia which came and went until all signs of the infection were gone. But then the immunologic reaction to the myelin protein set off a second wave of disease. The guinea pigs first suffered brain damage and paralysis, then died. The mortality rate was close to 100 percent. In contrast to garden variety Legionella , which requires many thousands of organisms to cause disease, the new strain required only a few organisms to trigger the sickness.
    Not all the chimeras are based on adding human genes. One of the most insidious variations is the insertion of the genome for an entire organism, such as a virus, into a bacteria. For example, the Soviets created a chimera consisting of Venezuelan equine encephalitis virus, responsible for a central nervous system infection, into Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of plague. A person treated with antibiotics for plague would trigger the release of the virus, causing a lethal secondary infection.
    In addition to developing the bioweaponized agents, the Biopreparat developed advanced methods for freeze-drying and other preservation regimens for the organisms, which were almost as difficult as developing the organisms themselves. Lastly, they developed methods for efficient aerosolization of the agents to ensure widespread infection rates.
    Where are the former Soviet scientists of the Biopreparat and Vector Labs today? Some, like Ken Alibek and Sergei Popov, have become citizens of Western countries. Others still work for the Russian government. But others probably found work elsewhere, possibly in countries with an interest in bioterrorism. It has been reported that former Biopreparat scientists have trained molecular biology students at the Pasteur Institute in Tehran. And what became of the hundreds of tons of organisms like smallpox, anthrax, and plague produced by the Soviet Biopreparat? Certainly they weren't destroyed. What does the future hold? Unknown. But fighting bioterrorism following the dispersion of the Soviet scientists will not be easy.

Smallpox virus