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Universities Prepare New Defenders Against Bioterror By Chris Schneidmiller WASHINGTON — The threat that biological agents will again be used against the United States has led U.S. universities to begin preparing this nation’s next generation of biodefenders (see GSN, Sept. 15, 2003). While there have been no chemical, radiological or nuclear attacks on U.S. soil, the anthrax and ricin mailings have made it clear that there are people willing and able to use biological agents here. If it is too late to hope for the best — no attacks — U.S. institutions are preparing for the worst. The U.S. Health and Human Services Department awarded more than $50 million over fiscal years 2003 and 2004 to institutions for training and educating public health professionals against bioterrorism. Meanwhile, three universities — St. Louis, George Mason in northern Virginia and Georgetown in Washington, D.C. — have gone further by offering graduate degrees in biodefense. “We don’t have trained experts in biodefense in the country because this science has not existed as a science like physics or chemistry,” said Ken Alibek, executive director for education at the National Center for Biodefense at George Mason University. The United States needs at least 7,000 to 12,000 trained biodefenders working for the military, intelligence agencies, law enforcement and first-responder services, and in the medical and engineering fields, Alibek said. “This in my opinion is the smallest number we need to have,” he said. The universities join hundreds of higher-education institutions now offering homeland security-related courses, certificate programs and degrees. Many of those have arisen in the years since the Sept. 11 attacks, said Todd Stewart, executive director of the National Academic Consortium for Homeland Security at Ohio State University. The consortium alone works with 260 universities and colleges that offer education and research on homeland security issues. “There’s no indication that the threat’s going to diminish anytime soon,” Stewart said. “I think we’ll see more and more programs. I think we’re in the beginning of a new wave of programs dealing with biologicals,” said Greg Evans, director of St. Louis University’s Institute for Biosecurity. Alibek isn’t looking to simply ready his students for a biological attack scenario. He wants to educate the future policy-makers who will prepare the U.S. strategy to prevent a strike, the scientists who will develop the technology and the agents who will pursue the terrorists. “We’re not training bioterrorists, we’re training experts, defenders,” he said. A former high-level Soviet biological weapons official, Alibek moved from offense to defense after he defected to the United States in 1992 and helped found the National Center for Biodefense at George Mason. He said he always planned to develop an education program at the research center. Radiological and chemical agents were “more or less explored,” but biodefense was “completely new.” “It’s a science of the future,” he said. The first class of 80 students began classes in 2003; most were in the master’s and doctoral programs, with a few working for certificates. There are 220 students now enrolled in the program, and Alibek expects that to rise to about 350 by next fall. Students choose one of four concentrations: — Nonproliferation, studying the potential spread of biological weapons and the treaties and legislation meant to slow that advance. They also analyze biological weapons production and dual-use technology; — Medical Defense, researching new forms of biodefense, along with related topics such as microbial forensic science to investigate events, identify pathogens and analyze possible sources of an attack; — Engineering Defense/Countermeasures, preparing measures for detection and control of a biological release, and for protecting the populace from a pathogen; and — Law Enforcement/Counterterrorism, exploring the motivations for terrorist organizations to use weapons of mass destruction, and determining the threshold at which groups would use such weapons. There are hundreds of unresolved issues in the U.S. preparations for a WMD attack, Alibek said: Penicillin remains a recommended treatment for victims of inhalational anthrax, even though the antibiotic has never worked in such an incident and during the 2001 anthrax attacks, officials prescribed the stronger ciprofloxacin. The United States is paying $877 million for a new anthrax vaccine without proof that it will work better than existing treatments, Alibek said. The Health and Human Services Department is focused on developing new antibiotics rather than determining what protection existing treatments might convey to people exposed to a biological agent. “It’s the absence of real experts. That’s the cause,” Alibek said. Alibek hopes his students will resolve some of those problems. The first 20 to 30 master’s students will graduate this spring or summer, while doctoral students should begin to finish their work next year. Eighty percent of students are professionals in the military, government, health and private sectors, while others are already being hired by various government entities and contractors. Registered nurse Diane Doyle is set to graduate in August with her master’s degree and will move directly on to the doctoral program. Meanwhile, she is already contributing to an online instructional program being prepared by George Mason and George Washington universities to help nurses in different sectors — from hospitals to public schools — prepare for a WMD event. The curriculum for the National Nurse Emergency Preparedness Initiative should be ready by September, Doyle said. “The bottom line is if it’s a true disaster with big numbers, it doesn’t matter what area you work in,” she said. The 2001 anthrax attacks were a “huge eye-opener,” Doyle said. As news filtered in on the first death in Florida, she and co-workers at Inova Fairfax Hospital found they knew nothing about the virus. The biodefense program, which she came across in the GMU alumni magazine in 2003, offered the chance to dramatically increase her knowledge and that of her fellow medical professionals. “I told my husband I’m going to get in this program and start educating nurses. That’s my goal,” Doyle said. Doctoral student Katie Crockett said she plans to work in threat analysis. Like countless others, the Sept. 11 attacks and the anthrax mailings that quickly followed left her feeling “uncomfortably vulnerable.” Crockett began work at the National Center for Biodefense in early 2003 as a technical writer, and entered the doctoral program that fall. If learning more about the dangers of biological weapons is not exactly an antidote to fear, the program offers a chance for people to learn to do something about it. “Through my work at the center, I realized that there is a serious gap in our national defense, specifically that there are very few true experts in biodefense — people who have not only an understanding of the pathogens that pose the greatest threat, but also of how we can best defend against them from medical, engineering and political standpoints,” Crockett said by e-mail. “The knowledge and experience I have gained through working at the center and participating in the graduate program will enable me to make substantive contribution,” she added. New Leadership for New ThreatsThe George Mason University program has the advantage of being next door to the nation’s capital, where many of its students are already working. St. Louis University has to stretch to gather its biodefense student body. Program director Evans said public health officials and first-responders expressed interest in a program as he traveled the country talking about the threat of bioterror in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. The master’s degree and certificate programs arose from those discussions, he said. “Most of the people expressing interest in this program were people who could not leave their job and go back to school,” Evans said. Planning began two years ago for program that could offer online reading material, audio lectures, exercises and discussion groups to help fill the gaps in U.S. preparation to respond to a biological attack. Evans said the national focus has been on preparing first-responders, at the expense of the public health and medical care communities. Health officials still find themselves unprepared to organize widespread vaccinations or distribution of antibiotics, he said; hospitals lack capacity to handle a surge of patients exposed to anthrax or smallpox. The St. Louis program aims to help students develop plans and coordinate responses to an attack. To date there has been interest from professionals in fields ranging from health to corporate security and contingency management. The need for such training is significant not just in obvious sectors such as homeland security, Evans said. Corporate personnel need to know how to protect their employees from infection and to ensure their families are supported in the event of a natural or purposeful outbreak, he said. The threat from both is rising, as terrorists become more sophisticated in developing weapons of mass destruction and infections like SARS and Avian flu continue to arise, Evans said. Fifteen students are expected when the program begins in the fall, and the school hopes 50 will join by the third year for the biosecurity master’s degree program or shorter certificate program. The 11-course master’s curriculum includes courses on public health response to bioterrorism, fundamentals of infectious disease, crisis communication, risk assessment and the mental health consequences of terrorism. Students will also be able to attend two-week summer sessions conducting tabletop exercises at the university. “What we anticipate is they’re going to be better prepared to act as the leadership for their organization for responding to a biological disaster,” Evans said.
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