Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on Advances in Technology and the Prevention of Their Application to Next Generation Biowarfare Threats.
2. National Research Council (U.S.). Development, Security, and Cooperation.
3. Institute of Medicine (U.S.). Board on Global Health.

Description

1. xv, 299 pages : illustrations, maps; 23 cm

Subject

1. Bioterrorism
2. Biological warfare
3. Biotechnology
4. Biological Warfare

Contents

1. Executive summary -- Framing the issue -- Committee charge and process -- Emerging technologies in the life sciences -- Notable features of technological growth in the life sciences -- Definitions -- 20th century germ-based biowarfare -- Beating nature: is it possible to engineer a "better pathogen" -- Natural threats, the evolution of pathogenicity: what does it take to cause disease? -- The importance of the host response -- Advancing technologies will alter the future threat spectrum -- The development and use of biological weapons -- Biological weapons are fundamentally different from other "weapons of mass destruction" -- The "arms race" metaphor and the difficult issue of secrecy -- The need to strike a balance: benefits of technological growth -- The dual-use dilemma -- Committee process -- Report road map.
2. Global drivers and trajectories of advanced life science technologies -- The global marketplace -- The Pharmaceutical industry -- Global growth of the biotechnology industry -- The Fledgling nanobiotechnology industry -- Agricultural biotechnology -- Industrial biotechnology -- Biodefense -- Global dispersion of knowledge -- Global Scientific productivity -- Global growth in biotech patent activity -- Information technology -- Global dispersion of people -- Trends in higher education -- Snapshot of the global technology landscape -- East Asia and the Pacific -- Eastern Europe and Central Asia -- Latin America and the Caribbean -- Middle East and North Africa -- South Asia -- Sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Advances in technologies with relevance to biology: the future landscape -- A classification scheme for biological technologies -- Acquisition of novel biological or molecular diversity --DNA synthesis -- DNA shuffling -- Bioprospecting -- Combinatorial chemistry: generating chemical diversity -- High throughput screening -- Directed design -- Rational drug design -- Synthetic biology -- Genetic engineering of viruses -- Understanding and manipulating biological systems -- RNA interference -- High affinity binding reagents (aptamers and tadpoles) -- Computational biology and bioinformatics -- Systems biology -- Genomic medicine -- Modulators of homeostatic systems -- Production, delivery and packaging -- Plants as production platforms: "biopharming" -- Microfluidics and microfabrication -- Nanotechnology -- Aerosol technology -- Microencapsulation technology -- Gene therapy technologies -- Targeting biologically active materials to specific locations in the body -- The complementarity and synergy of technologies -- Conclusions and recommendations -- Appendixes.

Owning institution

1. Columbia University Libraries

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references.

Additional formats (note)

1. Also available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.