Manousos E. Kambouris – författare

Genomics in Biosecurity: Principles and Applications of Genomic Technologies in Expanded Biosecurity Concepts, in the Translational and Applied Genomics series, explains in definite and practical terms the applicability of genomic technologies in every aspect of biosecurity, from emergent diagnostics to bioterrorism, agroterrorism, next generation biowarfare, biosurveillance and risk assessment. This book offers an integrated discussion of genomics and GCBR (global catastrophic biological risks) events, considering both basic aspects of biosecurity genomics and application of genomic technologies to drive new solutions. Readers will find evidence-based strategies to apply genomics in disease and pathogen monitoring and diagnosis, and more.

Social aspects of GCBR events and genomic biosecurity, such as issues of terrorism, policy ethics, and practice, are also considered in-depth.

The explosive growth of bioeconomy and bioscience, coupled with an interconnected planet increases the potential impact of large-scale bio-events. Either causing public health threats as in epidemics or posing food security issues, from mass poisonings to large-scale starvation, such eventualities are direct threats and indirect destabilizers in a planetary context. The issue of Biosecurity thus pervades every affected aspect, from exploitations of the agro-sector and the food industry to the Public Health management, the novel therapeutic/treatment approaches, the new age of space, deep-sea and subterranean explorations and the interface with the cyber world and the massive or small-scale projection of violence. It has been present since ancient times tacitly and discreetly but only recently took its present guise, the different aspects of which are explored in this book.

The explosive growth of bioeconomy and bioscience, coupled with an interconnected planet increases the potential impact of large-scale bio-events. Either causing public health threats as in epidemics or posing food security issues, from mass poisonings to large-scale starvation, such eventualities are direct threats and indirect destabilizers in a planetary context. The issue of Biosecurity thus pervades every affected aspect, from exploitations of the agro-sector and the food industry to the Public Health management, the novel therapeutic/treatment approaches, the new age of space, deep-sea and subterranean explorations and the interface with the cyber world and the massive or small-scale projection of violence. It has been present since ancient times tacitly and discreetly but only recently took its present guise, the different aspects of which are explored in this book.

The concept of Hybrid Warfare has gained prominence in recent decades. It is a novel terminology, but the concept is detectable since antiquity: Ancient Chinese, Ancient Greeks and the Jews of Exodus were all well familiar, so well to have let us know. Similarly, bioagents have been used malevolently since always. What is novel is that these two, in the present context, are not only interfacing smoothly, but in an enhanced context: The Hybrid Warfare, which has now enriched its portfolio, from actions of provocation, insurgency, economic warfare, special operations, proxy warfare and social destabilization to the Residual domain, the cyberspace, while the conventional, 3D space expands. Now the Space and the Deep are included in the topography of the friction zone.

In this, the bio- factor becomes not only relevant but also an amplifier: using the technology malevolently, all the advances made to combat disease may be used to cause, further, or perplex and complicate disease. Improved or totally novel or even alien germs may replace explosives in bombs, shells or suicidal /kamimaze drones and taint bullets and fragments. Microrobots may deliver cancer cells to targeted individuals to foster cancer, or specific supergerms for an infection to rage unchallenged. And what happens if the mechanism of these cancers and infections is intentionally provided with an Abort signal? Global extortions would become probable, not just possible.

Far from Science Fiction, this dystopia becomes more probable by the day. The Artificial Intelligence simply makes it easier to occur. Technology allows manipulation and intervention in levels and extends only imagined in the Past, but the application of these capabilities is clearly of dual use, with the destructive potential leveraged by the complexity of the social and state structure. Within this book, we explore the “How” (occasionally the “What” also) in some of these instances. From cyber terrorists to aggressive bioindustrialists and “democratized” ballistic and cruise missile technology, it could be coined as "The Book of Modern Mayhem”.