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BTG 205 INTRODUCTORY BIOTECHNOLOGY BIOTECHNOLOGY IN BIOTERRORISM/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE.

BTG 205 INTRODUCTORY BIOTECHNOLOGY BIOTECHNOLOGY IN BIOTERRORISM/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. Bioterrorism. Bioterrorism is the intentional dissemination of a biological agent or its toxins, intended to kill or incapacitate the target individual or population.

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BTG 205 INTRODUCTORY BIOTECHNOLOGY BIOTECHNOLOGY IN BIOTERRORISM/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE.

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  1. BTG 205 INTRODUCTORY BIOTECHNOLOGY BIOTECHNOLOGY IN BIOTERRORISM/BIOLOGICAL WARFARE.

  2. Bioterrorism • Bioterrorism is the intentional dissemination of a biological agent or its toxins, intended to kill or incapacitate the target individual or population. • It is the intentional use of infectious agents (bacteria, virus, fungi, protozoa etc.) as biological weapons to inflict harm on humans. • Generally, the types of agents used as biological weapons cause systemic diseases, hemorrhagic fevers, pneumonias, or involve toxins and biological poisons.

  3. Qualities of a good bioweapon. • The microbes should be able to survive outside of the body, the biological agent must be virulent and lethal • The weapon should be quick-acting without a long lag time between dispersal and illness. • The biological agent should be easily dispersed, preferably as a powder, and should also be infectious through person-to-person contact. • grow in large quantities and not require sophisticated equipment or training • The agent should also be inexpensive to grow in quantity, especially for unfunded terrorists. • Ability to be weaponized

  4. Examples of Traditional Bioterrorist Agents • Bacillus anthracis, the bacterium that causes anthrax. • Yersini pestis, the bacterium that causes plague. • Variola virus, the virus that causes smallpox. • Botulinum toxin, a protein toxin produced by Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium that causes botulism.

  5. Application of Genetic Engineering in Bioterrorism • The advent of genetic engineering has opened a new era in creating and experimenting with biological weapons. • Recombinant rDNA technology and gene splicing offer unprecedented control in the manipulation and modification of an organism • Biotechnology could be utilized to produce pathogens with characteristics previously not encountered. • A bioweapon created employing such methods would exhibit increased virulence, modified transmission dynamics, evasion of human immune system and could be rendered refractory to currently available therapies.

  6. Examples of genetically modified Bioweapons. • Altered Bacillus anthracisresistant to a spectrum of recommended antibiotics including Ciprofloxacin and Doxcycline. Antibiotic resistant genes inserted into regular disease pathogens make them impossible to treat with conventional antimicrobials. • Recombinant Orthopox viruses constructed by insertion of foreign genes will be resistant to any mass vaccination attempts. • Genetically modified Filoviruses poses a greater threat, due to its mortality rate and lack of effective therapies or vaccines. • Weaponization of these agents (Ebola, Marburg) will make them almost impossible to contain.

  7. Francisellatularensis(the causative organism of Tularemia) which posses a very high infectivity potential was further genetically modified to be hypervirulent. This eventually lowered the minimum dose of organism required for infectivity. • Bacillus thuringiensisis widely used in biotechnology and a common industrial microbe carrying antibiotic resistant plasmid. This antibiotic resistant plasmid, introduced into Vibrio choleraeby transfection using a suitable bacteriophage vector system, will render the strain of cholera multidrug resistant

  8. Dual Agents • These groups of novel bioweapons display unique properties. • They are engineered by manipulating the genome of a microbe through insertion of an alien gene to perform different set of functions, which is not a part of the organism’s characteristics. • For example, Yersinia pestis(the causative agent of plague) expressing epsilon toxin under the control of antibiotic-induced expression system is a classical example of a dual agent.

  9. A recent legitimate scientific research produced recombinant mousepoxvirus Ectromeliawith inserted genes that expressed mouse IL-4. • This helped in overcoming the vaccine induced immune response. • If the same methods are applied for smallpox virus Variola major, it would have catastrophic consequences even among vaccinated population. • Many of the biodefense efforts like mass vaccination could be effectively countered.

  10. DNA sequencing and amplification • Large scale genome synthesis has facilitated the synthesis of bioweapon. • Sequences of DNA can be used as building blocks to fabricate the genome of an entirely new organism using various design protocols. • Synthetic biology aids in custom creation of weapons grade pathogens with unique properties, morphology and replication patterns

  11. Bioregulators in bioterrorism • Naturally occurring endogenous chemical compounds which have profound effect on human physiology by affecting several regulatory biochemical pathways, have shown to be potential biological weapons. • Bioregulatorscan have a range of toxic effects on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, neurovascular and immune systems leading to incapacitation and death in minutes. • Some of the well established bioregulatorsare cytokines, neurotransmitters, vasoactive amines, synthetic hormones, eicosanoids, plasma proteases and nucleotides.

  12. Traditional bioweapons like bacteria and viruses require time for incubation while bioregulatorshave a rapid onset of action. • Their presence in small amounts prevents detection in standard forensic assays. systems. • The management becomes complicated as most of these agents are not included in the standard list of bioweapons. • Vaccination and antidotes will be ineffective or theoretically impossible against this group of endogenous compounds. • Bioregulator genes could be cloned in a bacterial plasmid or a viral vector as a modified delivery system.

  13. Biodefense • Experimental vaccines and antidotes might not be widely available and would be inaccessible to most of the global population. • One of the main aims of clinical management is to create state of the art sustainable counter measures against the perceived bioterrorist threats involving novel agents. • It’s an encouraging trend that the policy to fast track clinical trials and permit early availability of experimental molecules and vaccines has been adopted by drug regulation agencies. • Initiatives like project biosheild, journal restriction protocols, controlled sale of dual use equipment, awareness creation, limiting select agents, health care training, stockpiling antidotes etc. have greatly enhanced biosecurity and biodefense levels.

  14. Biosensors • The use of biosensors for monitoring air and water could help increase biosecurity of the environment. • The United States National Institute of Health and the CDC are developing methods to detect and remediate biological threats.

  15. BIOSAFETY • Biosafety may be defined as the policies and procedures invariably adopted to ensure the environmentally safe applications of biotechnology.

  16. BIOSAFETY ISSUES 1.Risk for Health Toxicity & food quality/safety Allergies Pathogen drug resistance(antibiotic resistance). 2.Risk for Environment Persistency of gene of transgene or of transgene products Susceptibility of non target organisms Increased use of chemicals in agriculture Unpredictable gene expression or transgene instability 3.Agricultural Resistance/Tolerance of target organisms Weeds or Superweeds Alteration of nutritional value

  17. 4.Risks for interaction with non-target organisms : • Genetic pollution via pollen or seed dispersal • Horizontal gene transfer • DNA uptake that is transfer of foreign gene to microorganisms • Generation of new line viruses by recombinant DNA technology 5.General concerns : • Higher cost of agriculture production • Loss of familiarity • Ethical issues

  18. RISK ASSESSMENT OF GM FOODS • Risk assessment of GM food takes into considerations : • The food crop that has been modified • The potential for any introduced DNA to encode harmful substances • The safety proteins encoded by transgene • proof of important nutrients are within acceptable levels

  19. The process of Risk assessment of GMO entails the steps • Hazard identification • Hazard analysis • Consequence analysis • Risk determination • Risk evaluation

  20. AGENCIES • Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development(OECD) • Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO) • World Health Organization(WHO) • Codex AlimentariusCommission(CAC) • Food and Drug Administration (FDA) • U.S Department of Agriculture • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

  21. Bioethics in Biotechnology • It is the branch of ethics that studies the moral values in biotechnology. • The act of assessing whether biotechnology products and processes is morally wrong or right. ARE WE PLAYING GOD?

  22. More ethical issues • Violation of natural organisms' intrinsic values i.e its unnatural. Are all unnatural things also unethical? Surely airplanes are “unnatural,” so are they also unethical? • Objections to consuming animal genes in plants Animal rights.

  23. IS IT RIGHT TO CLONE HUMAN?

  24. STUDY DILIGENTLY !

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