Tag: GMU

Pandora Report 3.17.2017

by spopescu, posted in Pandora Report

Happy Friday! In honor of  John Snow‘s birthday (the father of epidemiology), our featured image is the Broad Street pump map he used to combat cholera in the 19th century. Don’t miss out on the early registration discount for our biodefense summer workshop!

NAS Calls for Increased Federal Regulatory Agency Preparation for Growing Biotechnology Products 
The National Academies of Science (NAS) recent press release is emphasizing the need for federal regulatory agencies to prepare for greater quantities and ranges of biotechnology products. As the biotech world constantly evolves, regulatory agencies have struggled to keep up and this latest report states that in the next five to ten years, the pace will outmatch the U.S. regulatory system. According to the report, biotechnology, like CRISPR, has a rapidly growing scale and scope, which already stresses existing staff, expertise, and resources available at agencies like the EPA, FDA, and USDA. “To respond to the expected increase and diversity of products, the agencies should develop risk-analysis approaches tailored to the familiarity of products and the complexity of their uses, the report says. For biotechnology products that are similar to products already in use, established risk-analysis methods can be applied or modified, and a more expedited process could be used. For products that have less-familiar characteristics or more complex risk pathways, new risk-analysis methods may need to be developed.  Regulatory agencies should build their capacity to rapidly determine the type of risk-analysis approaches most appropriate for new products entering the regulatory system.” Within the report, NAS notes that the federal government needs to develop a strategy to combat the current issues and strengthen their ability to scan for future biotechnology products to better prioritize.

GMU Schar School Master’s Open House 
Have you ever wanted to study topics like CRISPR, bioterrorism, global health security, and pathogens of biological weapons? Good news – we’ve got just the program for you! Come check out GMU’s biodefense MS program at our Open House on Wednesday, March 22nd at our Arlington Campus, Founders Hall (Room 126) at 6:30pm. You can talk to some of our biodefense faculty and learn about our program. Whether you’re looking to take classes in person or earn a degree online, the biodefense MS is the best for the intersection of science and policy.

DARPA Works Towards “Soldier Cell” To Fight Bioweapons 
A bio-control system to fight off invading pathogens? Sounds like something out of a science fiction movie! Well, researchers at Johns Hopkins University just received funding from DARPA to develop the capacity to “deploy single-cell fighters” that would target and eliminate the lethality of certain pathogens. “‘Once you set up this bio-control system inside a cell, it has to do its job autonomously, sort of like a self-driving car,’ said Pablo A. Iglesias, principal investigator on the project. Iglesias, a professor of electrical and computer engineering in the Whiting School, shifted his research focus from man-made to biological control systems about 15 years ago. ‘Think about how the cruise control in your car senses your speed and accelerates or slows down to stay at the pace you’ve requested,’ Iglesias said. ‘In a similar way, the bio-control systems we’re developing must be able to sense where the pathogens are, move their cells toward the bacterial targets, and then engulf them to prevent infections among people who might otherwise be exposed to the harmful microbes’.” This angle, which is being focused on bacteria outside of the body, is just one potential tool in the biodefense arsenal.

Yellow Fever Outbreak in Brazil 
Since December of 2016, Brazilian health officials have reported an ongoing outbreak of yellow fever. The CDC has moved the alert to a  Level 2 – Practice Enhanced Precautions. A report recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine looks at the outbreak and the potential for cases in U.S. territories. In Brazil, there were 234 cases and 80 deaths reported between December and February. “Although it is highly unlikely that we will see yellow fever outbreaks in the continental United States, where mosquito density is low and risk of exposure is limited, it is possible that travel-related cases of yellow fever could occur, with brief periods of local transmission in warmer regions such as the Gulf Coast states, where A. aegypti mosquitoes are prevalent.”

GMU Biodefense Represented At Biothreats Conference
If you missed out on our coverage of ASM’s 2017 Biothreats conference, here’s a spotlight on GMU biodefense students attending this captivating three-day event. GMU’s biodefense program sent four graduate students to experience and report on the conference, which addressed biothreat research, policy, and response. “The program was exciting, according to the George Mason students in attendance. Mercer and Goble recall that the conference engaged topics of specific interest to them, their degree, and their futures. ‘I attended a panel that was very closely related to disease forecasting, my graduate thesis topic,’ Mercer said. ‘I was able to hear some of the cutting-edge research in that field, which was really helpful’. ‘I didn’t really have a part I didn’t like,’ Goble said. ‘I enjoyed the niche topics that were presented in both panel discussions and poster  sessions, from emergency operations to the FDA. All of these specific topics were extremely interesting to hear about and to know they are being researched’.”

Just How Well Did the 2009 Pandemic Flu Vaccine Strategy Work?
Researchers from the University of Nottingham recently looked at the success of vaccines in terms of preventing pandemic flu and reducing hospitalizations. Their work looked at the 2009 WHO-declared pandemic of the novel A(H1N1) virus, which infected around 61 million people around the world. Vaccines against the virus were rolled out globally between September and December of 2009, with the majority being inactivated A(H1N1)pdm09 influenza virus. Their work involved reviewing 38 studies between June 2011 and April 2016 regarding the effectiveness of the inactivated vaccine, which covered around 7.6 million people. “We found that the vaccines produced against the swine flu pandemic in 2009 were very effective in both preventing influenza infection and reducing the chances of hospital admission due to flu. This is all very encouraging in case we encounter a future pandemic, perhaps one that is more severe,” noted Professor Van Tam said. “Of course, we recognize that it took five to six months for pandemic vaccines to be ready in large quantities; this was a separate problem. However, if we can speed up vaccine production times, we would have a very effective strategy to reduce the impact of a future flu pandemic.” The 2009 pandemic A(H1N1) vaccine was 73% effective against laboratory confirmed cases and 61% against preventing hospitalizations. Interestingly, when looking at the vaccines’ effectiveness in different age groups, “they were shown to be less effective in adults over 18 years than in children, and effectiveness was lowest in adults over 50 years of age. Adjuvanted vaccines were found to be particularly more effective in children than in adults against laboratory confirmed illness (88 per cent in children versus 40 per cent in adults) and hospitalization (86 per cent in children versus 48 per cent in adults).”

Deadly Fungal Infection Arrives in U.S. 
While many are asking if surveillance methods for tracking the deadly CRE bacteria are adequate, a new issue is emerging in U.S. hospitals. Despite WHO’s recent plea for increased R&D surrounding certain resistant pathogens, it seems that more and more organisms of concern are springing up in U.S. hospitals. Since last summer, roughly three dozen people have been diagnosed with a highly resistant Candida auris infection. The fungal infection has caused worry ever since it was identified in 2009 due to its capacity as an emerging and resistant organism. Candida yeast infections are pretty common and known to cause urinary tract infections however, this strain is especially concerning because it easily causes bloodstream infections, has a stronger capacity for transmission between people, and is much more hardy in terms of living on skin and environmental surfaces. “Of the first seven cases that were reported to the CDC last fall, four patients had bloodstream infections and died during the weeks to months after the pathogen was identified. Officials said they couldn’t be sure whether the deaths were caused by the infection because all the individuals had other serious medical conditions. Five patients had the fungus initially isolated from blood, one from urine, and one from the ear.”

CDC Director Warns Loss of DHHS Funds Could Weaken Infectious Disease Prevention
Acting CDC director, Anne Schuchat, recently testified before Congress to make the case for for increased funding for several programs (one being the DHHS’s Prevention and Public Health Fund). Among other things, the Prevention and Public Health Fund is responsible for 12% of the CDC’s budget. Dr. Schucat’s testimony emphasized the previous usage of these funds in terms of vaccine delivery, disease surveillance, monitoring of water supplies, and tracking hospital-acquired infections. The growth of antibiotic resistance made her testimony and plea to Congress that much more relevant and urgent. “The CDC and other government agencies have in recent years cited the numerous public health threats posed by infectious diseases in general, and have lobbied officials for increased funding for research and development of novel vaccines and treatments as well as programs to effectively distribute interventions as needed. In 2016, for example, the CDC, DHHS, and National Institutes of Health requested federal funding to combat Zika, a request that was not approved until late in the year.”

Stories You May Have Missed:

  • Science on Screen – Don’t miss this great event hosted by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory! On March 18th, you can watch the second installment of the Science on Screen series, featuring “Lawrence Livermore scientists Monica Borucki and Jonathan Allen, who will present ‘Reconstructing a Rabies Epidemic: Byte by Byte.’ This informative and entertaining lecture will explain how biologists and computer scientists used cutting-edge, ultra-deep sequencing technology to study the dynamics of a 2009 rabies outbreak. This case study, based on a dramatic increase (more than 350 percent) in the gray fox population infected with a rabies variant for which striped skunks serve as the reservoir hosts, will be used to help illustrate the changes in the viral genome during cross-species viral transmission. This lecture is appropriately paired with the feature-length film, “Contagion” (PG-13).”
  • Clorox Gets Spot on EPA A-Team – Clorox just earned its varsity spot on the team against hospitality-acquired infections. The EPA approved two of the company’s products in killing clostridium difficile spores. C-diff is a constant battle in healthcare facilities, so having the new tool in the infection prevention and environmental disinfection toolkit, is a huge advantage for many. “In addition, the cleaners and wipes recently become EPA-registered to disinfect against other bacterial infections, such as those caused by Staphylococcus epidermidis, Candida glabrata, and Enterococcus hirae. Moreover, the products are also effective against several viral pathogens, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), measles, and Influenza A and B, among others.”

 

Pandora Report 1.20.2017

by spopescu, posted in Pandora Report

We’ve got lots of biodefense goodies for you this week, so grab your PPE and let’s get rolling!

Billion-Dollar Vaccine and Epidemic Preparedness Project 
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) launched this week at the World Economic Forum with an initial $460 million backing from Norway, Germany, Japan, the Welcome Trust, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. CEPI expects to raise the rest of the needed $1 billion by the end of the year. Their focus is on pre-emptively developing and stockpiling vaccines to better prevent and respond to outbreaks. CEPI marks the largest vaccine development initiative and their plan is to start with vaccines against Nipah virus, MERS-CoV, and Lassa fever. While this is wonderful news, it may just be one step closer to marginalizing the WHO, which has been struggling to stay both relevant and effective. The WHO response to Ebola started drawing more recent attention to the organization’s struggles which were only fueled by slow vaccine procurement/development. These issues culminated with their recommendations to dilute the yellow fever vaccines during last year’s outbreak in Africa due to poor planning. Vaccine development and stockpiling is truly vital to outbreak response. “The CEPI intends to support research at every stage, from basic lab work to vaccine discovery and clinical trials. It also made its first call for research proposals on 18 January, and teams have until 8 March to submit preliminary proposals for grants. ‘For too long, we have separated out the academic work from the next step of taking it into all that is actually required to make a vaccine,’ says Farrar. There is also no market for vaccines against ‘potential’ epidemic threats, he notes, which explains why there is no commercial incentive to take research leads out of the lab and into clinical development’.”

ABSA DURC Roundtable
Don’t miss the Dual Use Research of Concern (DURC) Roundtable Discussion offered by ABSA International on March 15th! This distance learning opportunity will be offered from 12-2pm (CDT), and will aid the user in finding resources and guidance on the U.S. government DURC policies, developing a network of biosafety professionals, and more! “One size does not fit all when it comes to solutions to comply with research policy. The goal of this webinar is to provide best practices, provide insight on how several different institutions are meeting the DURC policy requirements, and help participants troubleshoot issues surrounding DURC that they may have at their institutions. Participants will have the opportunity to submit questions regarding DURC prior to the start of the webinar as well as during the live webinar.”

GMU Trains First Responders Against Infectious Disease  firstrespondertraining3_davefarris
GMU’s Office of Safety, Emergency, and Enterprise Rise Management is now providing local and national first responders with infectious disease training so that they’re better able to protect themselves during outbreaks. The program was made available through a three-year grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “This training is a natural extension of a program Mason’s Biomedical Research Lab biosafety manager Diann Stedman has offered to regional emergency response personnel since the 2010 opening of the lab on the Science and Technology Campus. Stedman is leading the training with Julie Zobel, assistant vice president of safety, emergency and enterprise risk management, and David Farris, executive director of safety and emergency management. Collectively, the three have more than 30 years of experience in the health and safety field, much of it focused on biological safety.”

Completing the Development of Ebola Vaccines 
CIDRAP and Welcome Trust have just released their report – Completing the Development of Ebola Vaccines: Current Status, Remaining Challenges, and Recommendations. “This is the third major report from the Wellcome Trust–CIDRAP Ebola Vaccine Team B. The first report, Recommendations for Accelerating the Development of Ebola Vaccines: Report and Analysis, was released in February 2015, and the second, Plotting the Course of Ebola Vaccines: Challenges and Unanswered Questions, was released in March 2016. In this report, similar to our previous efforts, we have three primary objectives. The first is to track progress toward ensuring that safe, effective, and durable multivalent Ebola vaccines are readily available and can be rapidly deployed when the next outbreak occurs. The second is to identify challenges and barriers where additional efforts are needed, although some of the remaining issues are complex and will require substantial resources to resolve. Our third objective is to provide a set of high-level recommendations that we believe, if implemented, will facilitate the goal of having a robust Ebola virus disease (EVD) prevention program in place that allows prophylactic vaccination of high-risk frontline workers and provides well- maintained vaccine stockpiles to facilitate rapid control of Ebola outbreaks.” The report highlights current clinical evaluations of Ebola vaccine candidates, funding, and regulatory activities. Some of the recommendations include reassessing the leadership structure for Ebola vaccine preparedness, developing strategies for mitigating the financial uncertainties and risks for manufacturers, etc. This report has left many experts pointing to the reality that we’re just not ready for another Ebola outbreak. 

Center for Health Security Joins Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School 
The Center for Health Security has a new home in Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health! Previously affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the CHS will now have significant new opportunities for research and work in national and international public health policy. Originally founded in 1998 by the late D.A. Henderson at Johns Hopkins, the center has been affiliated with UPMC since 2003. “The mission of our center is a perfect fit with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health because we share a commitment to improving global health and to protecting lives through large-scale change,” says Tom Inglesby, director and CEO of the Center for Health Security. “Moving to the Bloomberg School will expand the reach of the center and help us collaborate with and tap into the universe of great talent at Johns Hopkins. We look forward to joining our expertise on health security and preparedness policy to Johns Hopkins’ internationally recognized community of scientists and public health scholars.” We’re looking forward to seeing all the great work that will be done as the center returns to Johns Hopkins!

Zika Outbreak Updates
As the dust settles, some are looking to the WHO and public health infrastructure failures regarding the Zika outbreak as many are pointing out how the response failed millions. “But the positives were counterbalanced by many negatives, experts said. They harshly criticized the partisan bickering that delayed a Zika-funding bill in Congress for months, and they decried the failure of every city in the hemisphere — other than Miami — to control mosquitoes.” You can also read an opinion piece here, from a pregnant woman living in Miami who tested positive for the Zika. As of January 18th, the CDC has reported 4,900 cases of Zika in the U.S.

Stories You May Have Missed:

  • screen-shot-2017-01-19-at-12-31-34-pmCDC Director’s Departing Words- As CDC director, Dr. Tom Frieden, prepares to leave office after 8 years, he’s offering some words of wisdom. Dr. Frieden has been tested by major health events like Ebola, Zika, MERS, 2009’s H1N1, and a growing domestic overdose issue. “Fundamentally, Americans are healthier and safer because of the work CDC has done over the last eight years. Americans are safer because we have better capacities in place, better infrastructure in place in this country and around the world to find threats early, stop them quickly and prevent them wherever possible. We’ve done that through laboratory work that looks at microbial genomics so we can stop outbreaks sooner. We’ve done that by training the next generation of public health specialists — more than 1,000 of them, fresh out of college and graduate school — deployed out to state and local governments. These people will be protecting Americans for decades to come.”
  • Proposed Presidential Autism-Vaccine Panel Could Help Spread Disease– The potential panel is drawing increasing attention as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is poised to be the leader. The environmental lawyer has been vocal in his vaccine skepticism, which has led many to worry in terms of federal support for vaccine programs. “Although the autism–vaccine claim has been studied and debunked, the president-elect has also suggested a connection. His team later hedged about the panel, saying that nothing had been decided. (Kennedy’s office declined an interview request.) Nevertheless, public health experts and autism advocates are deeply worried that an effort with presidential backing could undermine public confidence in vaccines and trigger epidemics of all-but-eradicated diseases.”
  • Assad Linked to Syrian Chemical Attacks – The Syrian President has officially been linked to a series of chlorine bomb attacks in 2014/2015. “International investigators have said for the first time that they suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according to a document seen by Reuters. A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had previously identified only military units and did not name any commanders or officials.”

Pandora Report 8.9.15

by juliadhomstad, posted in Pandora Report

My apologies for lack of update last weekend…but that means a SUPER UPDATE this weekend! This week marked the 70th anniversary of atomic bombs being dropped in Japan. Rather than find an insufficient story that attempted to address the gravity of that event, we’re focusing on a successful Ebola vaccine trial, UN consensus on Syrian chemical weapons, and airplane bathrooms (because I can’t help myself when I see a story like that!) We’ve also got stories you may have missed.

Have a great week!

Vaccine Success Holds Hope for End to Deadly Scourge of Ebola

Some great news from West Africa: an Ebola vaccine trial in Guinea has returned results that are 100% effective. 4,000 people who had been in close contact with a confirmed Ebola case showed complete protection after ten days. A ring vaccination strategy—where those who have close contact with an infected person—was used, and after success was demonstrated, the vaccine is now being extended to 13-17 year olds, and possibly 6-12 year old children.

Reuters—“The success of the Guinea trial is a big relief for researchers, many of whom feared a sharp decline in cases this year would scupper their hopes of proving a vaccine could work. Another major trial in Liberia, which had aimed to recruit some 28,000 subjects, had to stop enrolling after only reaching its mid-stage target of 1,500 participants. Plans for testing in Sierra Leone were also scaled back. That left the study in Guinea, where Ebola is still infecting new victims, as the only real hope for demonstrating the efficacy of a vaccine.”

U.N. Approves Resolution on Syria Chemical Weapons

The UN Security Council unanimously—yes, even Russia—adopted a resolution aimed at identifying those responsible for the use of chemical weapons in Syria over the past two years. The resolution established an investigative body that would assign blame for the attacks “so that the perpetrators can be brought to justice.”

Salt Lake Tribune—“‘Pointing a finger matters,” U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told the council. “This sends a clear and powerful message to all those involved in chemical weapons attacks in Syria that the [new investigative body] will identify you if you gas people.” But she added that prosecuting perpetrators will take time because there is still no tribunal to investigate alleged crimes during the war in Syria, which has killed at least 250,000 people since it began in March 2011, according to the U.N.”

Airplane Toilets Can Help Researchers Find Disease Outbreaks

A recent study in Scientific Reports finds that researchers can tell what continent you’re from and give early indication of disease outbreaks, all from the poop left in airplanes. (I think this is the first time I’ve been able to say “poop” here on the blog.) The researchers gathered samples from 18 airplanes that departed from nine cities and landed in Copenhagen and were able to identify continental trends. Microbes from Southeast Asia had higher incidence of antibiotic resistance; food transmitted microbes were also more frequent in the Southeast Asian samples; and C. diff was much more common in the North American samples.

Popular Science—“These findings led the researchers to believe that they could start to create a typical microbiome for each continent. And any big shifts that happen in their makeup—say, the concentration of C. diff rises dramatically in samples from Southeast Asia—could indicate a growing public health issue. If it’s caught early enough, public health officials could take preventative action.”

Stories You May Have Missed

 

Image Credit: CDC Global

New from the Biodefense Faculty

by juliadhomstad, posted in Program News

On this #FacultyFriday, we’ve got recent publications and appearances from two George Mason Biodefense faculty members.

Dr. Gregory Koblentz appeared on CBC Radio’s The Current to disucuss the recent Canada-India uranium deal. Listen to the whole segment here.

Charles Blair reflects on the Oklahoma City bombing as the 20th anniversary of the event nears.

Often erroneously explained away as psychopathic, Timothy McVeigh actually comported with psychologist and terrorism expert Clark R. McCauley’s finding that, “the best documented generalization is negative; terrorists do not show any striking psychopathology.” Though abhorrent, McVeigh’s actions are certainly intelligible. Examined extensively by psychiatrist John Smith in the months after the attack, McVeigh was judged as sane—“not delusional.” When asked why McVeigh “would commit such a terrible crime,” Smith concluded that “it was a conscious choice on his part, not because he was deranged … or misinterpreting reality … but because he was serious.”

His entire piece in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists can be found here.

New from the Biodefense Faculty

by juliadhomstad, posted in Program News

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in their Agree to Disagree roundtable, is hosting a Winter-Safe Deterrence Debate. The premise of the debate follows:

In a recent opinion column for the Bulletin, “Deterrence, without nuclear winter,” Seth Baum argued that the biggest danger posed by world nuclear arsenals is a nuclear winter that could be sparked by even a limited exchange of nuclear weapons. Baum’s piece went on to suggest that “the world’s biggest nuclear powers [might] meet their deterrence needs without keeping the large nuclear arsenals they maintain today. They could practice a winter-safe deterrence, which would rely on weapons that pose no significant risk of nuclear winter.”

Baum’s column and the study from which it draws, “Winter-safe Deterrence: The Risk of Nuclear Winter and Its Challenge to Deterrence,” published in the journal Contemporary Security Policy, have been vigorously disputed in social media. In this roundtable, security experts Gregory Koblentz, Martin Furmanski, Brett Edwards, Gigi Kwik Gronvall, and Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley and Baum debate his column and winter-safe deterrence ideas in more depth.

GMU Biodefense Faculty members Gregory Koblentz and Sonia Ben Ouagrham-Gormley have each offered two replies in the debate which are available here and here for Koblentz and here and here for Ouagrham-Gormley.

All replies in the debate are available here.

Image (Video) of the Day: Zombie Modeling!

by juliadhomstad, posted in Images, The Lighter Side
For those Geographical Information Science (GIS) and Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) wonks out there, you might appreciate Dr. Andrew Crooks’ simple agent-based model of zombie attack.
Dr. Crooks, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computational Social Science and a researcher in the Center for Social Complexity at George Mason University‘s Krasnow Institute for Advanced Study, explains this model:

At each time step, a human moves to a nearby unoccupied space, and a zombie moves to the nearest human. If a zombie and an uninoculated human occupy the same space, a fierce battle ensues, in which the probability that the human will kill the zombie is pkH-z, and the probability that the zombie kills the human and converts them to their horrific undead form is pkZ-h. 

Zombies, however, are not attracted to inoculated humans and ignore them. If recovery? is enabled, then there is a chance (given by recoveryRate) that a zombified person will see the errors of their cannibalistic ways and return to human form. All these factors working together provide some interesting population dynamics, illustrated by the “Totals” population count plot on the screen. 
Enjoy!

Mason Researchers Looking for Fresh Answers in a Medieval Disease

by juliadhomstad, posted in News, Research Notes

George Mason University’s National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases has been researching the causative agent of plague–Yersinia pestis.

George Mason University professor Ramin M. Hakami is searching for new ways to treat modern ailments by studying bacterial and viral biodefense agents, including the medieval disease notoriously known as the Black Death.

Along the way, he’s also coaching the next generation of researchers. The two endeavors are equally critical, says Hakami, who knows firsthand how crucial mentoring can be to young researchers from when he himself was a student earning his doctorate in biochemistry in the laboratory of the Nobel Laureate Professor Har Gobind Khorana at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Read the full article here.

 

Image credit: George Mason University

Looking Clearly at Right-Wing Terrorism

by juliadhomstad, posted in Program News

Charles P. Blair is a Washington, D.C.-based university instructor, researcher, writer, and thinker specializing in terrorism and the history, technical underpinnings, and potential futures of Weapons of Mass Destruction. He is the director for two courses in the Summer Program in International Security: 21st Century Terrorism: Emerging Trends and Evolving Tactics which runs July 14-16 and Terrorism Analysis: Quantitative and Qualitative Research Methodologies and Tools which runs July 17-18.

Register before June 15 and save $200-$300 on course registration for the GMU Summer Program in International Security!

By Charles P. Blair

Five years ago the US Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Environment Threat Analysis Division released an assessment of US far-right extremism. Initially intended for law enforcement and intelligence agencies only, the report—“Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment”—was almost immediately leaked. The report warned that small cells practicing “leaderless resistance” and “white supremacist lone wolves [posed] the most significant domestic terrorist threat.” Significantly, it highlighted the likelihood of expanded attempts by far-right extremists “to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities.” Overall, the report warned of trends similar to “the 1990s when rightwing extremism experienced a resurgence.” That far-right extremist rally reached a violent crescendo with the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

Reflecting on the past five years, a leading far-right extremism expert I recently interviewed described the homeland security report as “prophetic.” Mark Pitcavage, the Anti-Defamation League’s director of investigative research, explained that most of the warnings in the 2009 report have become realities. Yet at the time of its release, the document was derided by many inside and outside of government as “ridiculous [and] deeply offensive,” an “inconceivable” assault on US veterans, and, in general, “a piece of crap.” …

Read Charles Blair’s entire article at the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, here.

Congrats to GMU Biodefense 2014 Graduates!!

by juliadhomstad, posted in Program News

If the words CBRN, Deterrence, Terrorism, Tacit Knowledge, Anthrax, Vaccination, Public Health, International Security, The Rajneesh’s Cult, Aum Shinrikyo, Iraqi WMD, Biopreparat, The Pandora Report, Bruce Ivans, Small Pox, Intelligence, Arms Control, Measles, The Biological Weapons Convention, Biosurveillance, BioSense, BioWatch, and Zombie have any meaning to you, you might just FINALLY be one of George Mason University’s few and proud Biodefense graduates.

This year our program is very proud to have graduated 3 Doctoral Candidates and 20 Masters Candidates well equipped to fight the good fight against the Zombie Apocalypse!

CONGRATULATIONS to GMU’s Biodefense Doctoral and Masters Class of 2014!!

Doctoral Candidates
Jenna Frost
Brian M. Mazanec
William E. Sumner

Master’s Candidates
Amy Armitage
Kellie Bolling
Ashley Eilers-Lupton
Courtney Gavitt
Deborah Harden
Christopher Healey
Michael Herman
Alena James
Blain Johnson
Quyen Kim
David Kimble
Annabel Lang
Katherine Montwill
Nicole Morgan Starks
Ashley Negrin
Cathleen Nguyen
Erika Olsen
Laura Sears
Saranga Senaratna
Brian Wilber

Deborah Harden Receives GMU Biodefense Departmental Award

by juliadhomstad, posted in Program News

By Alena M. James

HardenJust a few years ago, Deborah Harden made the decision to continue her education.  After earning her undergraduate degree in engineering and serving in the U.S. Air Force as an Aerospace engineer, Harden began working at Battelle, a nonprofit that plays a major role in managing the world’s leading national laboratories. The company offers expertise and resources helping government agencies and multi-national corporations in several projects. In her employment at Battelle, Harden very quickly recognized that an understanding of biodefense would help her acquire financial resources to fund projects for the company.  In order to gain this knowledge, she enrolled in GMU’s Biodefense Program. “When I began working at Battelle, I needed to understand biodefense so I could better articulate what our scientists were researching so I could find funding for them,” Harden said.

This year Harden completed her Master’s Project on a very interesting topic examining what happens to bioengagagment programs once donor funds stop being made available. “I studied sustainability of U.S. bioengagement programs.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, several agencies in the U.S. worked with the newly independent states to secure pathogen collections, institute disease surveillance systems, and work with former weapons scientists to learn to conduct peaceful research programs.  Money from donor countries like the U.S. won’t continue forever, so what happens to these biologists and programs after the donors leave?  I found some great literature about sustainment and found that we’re mostly on the right track, but more can be done,” explained Harden.  Dr. Gregory Koblentz served as Harden’s advisor and provided her with numerous resources and feedback to help her with the project.

Harden’s project coincided nicely with her current profession. As a program manager for Battelle, she developed and worked on bioengagment programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. “My job is to determine the state of biological research, safety, and security in these countries, and find ways to improve them so they meet WHO and international standards.  I also lead some tasks in the Republic of Georgia trying to make their BSL-3 public health laboratory sustainable,” she explained.

Not only has Deborah completed her project and continues to evaluate programs overseas, but she was also selected as this year’s Departmental Award Recipient of the Master’s Program for her work and scholarly achievements.

Harden’s experience in the Biodefense program has been pretty great for her. She explains that she learned just as much from her smart fellow-students as she did from the courses she was taking. “It was an eye-opener for me because I expected to go to GMU to learn and found that contributing was just as important. That wasn’t my experience as an undergrad.” The retired Aerospace Engineer enjoyed taking several classes in the program that helped her to gain a better understanding of her own field in bioengagment. She also really enjoyed her classes on policy and treaties, arms control, disease surveillance, and the Examining Terrorist Groups course.

With her Master’s Project now behind her, Harden is already contemplating how to spend her time.  “I’m thinking of re-learning French or maybe beginning Russian. Or I might reapply for a PhD in Biodefense. There is a lot more I could do with the research I began.”

“People always ask me if it’s frightening studying something like bioterrorism.  I tell them that the most comforting thing I learned was how hard it is to actually make a bioweapon that is capable of killing a large number of people.  And that Mother Nature is probably the scariest bioterrorist.”

Harden also had a few words of advice for the future graduates and prospective students of GMU’s Biodefense Program.

“Keep an open mind about things you read.  Academia and the ‘real world’ are often two different animals.  Also, please read at least half of what you are supposed to read before a class!”

 

(Banner Image Credit: George Mason University)