A Manhattan Project for Bioterrorism

Courtesy of Viral Defense Foundation

Norman G. Anderson (right) is president and founder of the Viral Defense Foundation http://viraldefense.org, and N. Leigh Anderson (left) is CEO of the Plasma Proteome Institute. Previously they jointly founded the Molecular Anatomy Program at the Argonne National Laboratory, and a biotechnology company, Large Scale Biology.

A new "Manhattan Project" to combat bioterrorism has been proposed by US Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and many others. But what would such a project look like? And is it a good idea? For some answers, it is worth reviewing the history of the original Manhattan Project.

We have between us spent almost 38 years in national laboratories at Oak Ridge, Tenn., and Argonne, Ill., which were both derived from the Manhattan Project. The Project had a clear central objective, a decisive test for success or failure, leadership by technically competent hands-on scientists, access to all discoverable intellectual ...