New plan aims to accelerate research translation, advance equity
Today, on National Nanotechnology Day, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office (NNCO) unveiled the 2021 National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) Strategic Plan. This strategy details a new framework to ensure that the United States continues to lead the world not only in nanoscience discoveries, but in translating and manufacturing its products to benefit all of America. In addition to identifying priorities for the NNI to best support the research community in the United States, the plan prioritizes efforts to expand sustainable infrastructure and advance equity in the nanotechnology workforce.
“The role of nanotechnology in our response to the pandemic—from vaccine delivery to protective clothing to testing kits—emphasizes the potential for small science to have big impacts,” said National Nanotechnology Coordination Office Director Dr. Lisa E. Friedersdorf. “This strategic plan charts an exciting path forward for the National Nanotechnology Initiative to ensure continued progress in nanotechnology research and development, and to attract students from across all of America.”
Nanotechnology research and development requires access to specialized tools and facilities. This plan emphasizes the need to expand and refresh the research infrastructure, and provide access that supports researchers and small business across all of America. This research infrastructure also plays a critical role in training the future workforce for high-paying jobs.
Since the launch of the NNI in 2000, nanoscience has transformed from an emerging area of research to a technology that is fueling real-world applications in areas as diverse as consumer electronics, water purification, infrastructure, medicine, energy, space exploration, and agriculture. Nanotechnology underpins and enables other critical technologies, including quantum computing and artificial intelligence, and will also help address the most significant challenges facing the world, including pandemic preparedness, climate change, and food insecurity. This strategic plan lays out a path to ensure continued U.S. leadership in this important area.
More on the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI): The NNI was announced in 2000 and codified on Dec. 3, 2003, through the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (15 USC §7501), to enhance interagency coordination of nanotechnology research and development; support a shared infrastructure; enable leveraging of resources while avoiding duplication; and establish shared goals, priorities, and strategies that complement agency-specific missions and activities.
More information on the NNI, including upcoming events and opportunities to engage, is available on Nano.gov. Inquiries and comments also can be sent to info@nnco.nano.gov.
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This above is probably why some people attribute this to Biden’s admin. They\ve never come out with anything new and original, not even that oxymoronic “Build Back Better” slogan. This dates back to the Clinton admin, and originates in military research:
“Mihail C. Roco proposed the initiative in a 1999 presentation to the White House under the Clinton administration. The NNI was officially launched in 2000 and received funding for the first time in FY2001.
President Bill Clinton advocated nanotechnology development. In a 21 January 2000 speech at the California Institute of Technology, Clinton stated that “Some of our research goals may take twenty or more years to achieve, but that is precisely why there is an important role for the federal government.”
President George W. Bush further increased funding for nanotechnology. On 3 December 2003 Bush signed into law the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (Pub. L.108–153 (text)(PDF)), which authorizes expenditures for five of the participating agencies totaling $3.63 billion over four years. This law is an authorization, not an appropriation, and subsequent appropriations for these five agencies have not met the goals set out in the 2003 Act. However, there are many agencies involved in the Initiative that are not covered by the Act, and requested budgets under the Initiative for all participating agencies in Fiscal Years 2006 – 2015 totaled over $1 billion each.
In February 2014, the National Nanotechnology Initiative released a Strategic Plan outlining updated goals and “program component areas”, as required under the terms of the Act. This document supersedes the NNI Strategic Plans released in 2004 and 2007.
The NNI’s budget supplement proposed by the Obama administration for Fiscal Year 2015 provides $1.5 billion in requested funding. The cumulative NNI investment since fiscal year 2001, including the 2015 request, totals almost $21 billion. Cumulative investments in nanotechnology-related environmental, health, and safety research since 2005 now total nearly $900 million. The Federal agencies with the largest investments are the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
The NNI cumulative investment by 2021 inclusive reached $36 billion, and nanotechnology has become pervasive in material, energy and biosystem related applications.”
Where we learn that the invention of the Lipid Nano-Containers used in Covid mRNA vaccines was publicly-funded research, Pfizer and Moderna just parasiting government’s achievements and selling it back to the people, “the owners of the Government”, at astronomical prices.
Here’s something to further support for our findings that legal drug dealers and arms dealers are not really separate cartels, but rather form a Military BioTech Complex, that also includes the Silicone Valley freaks:
This timeline features Premodern example of nanotechnology, as well as Modern Era discoveries and milestones in the field of nanotechnology.
Premodern Examples of Nanotechnologies
Early examples of nanostructured materials were based on craftsmen’s empirical understanding and manipulation of materials. Use of high heat was one common step in their processes to produce these materials with novel properties.
The Lycurgus Cup at the British Museum, lit from the outside (left) and from the inside (right)
4th Century: The Lycurgus Cup (Rome) is an example of dichroic glass; colloidal gold and silver in the glass allow it to look opaque green when lit from outside but translucent red when light shines through the inside. (Images at left.)
The South rose window of Notre Dame Cathedral, ca 1250
6th-15th Centuries: Vibrant stained glass windows in European cathedrals owed their rich colors to nanoparticles of gold chloride and other metal oxides and chlorides; gold nanoparticles also acted as photocatalytic air purifiers. (Image at left.)
13th-18th Centuries:“Damascus” saber blades contained carbon nanotubes and cementite nanowires—an ultrahigh-carbon steel formulation that gave them strength, resilience, the ability to hold a keen edge, and a visible moiré pattern in the steel that give the blades their name. (Images below.)
(Left) A Damascus saber (photo by Tina Fineberg for The New York Times). (Right) High-resolution transmission electron microscopy image of carbon nanotubes in a genuine Damascus sabre after dissolution in hydrochloric acid, showing remnants of cementite nanowires encapsulated by carbon nanotubes (scale bar, 5 nm) (M. Reibold, P. Paufler, A. A. Levin, W. Kochmann, N. Pätzke & D. C. Meyer, Nature 444, 286, 2006).
Examples of Discoveries and Developments Enabling Nanotechnology in the Modern Era
These are based on increasingly sophisticated scientific understanding and instrumentation, as well as experimentation.
“Ruby” gold colloid (Gold Bulletin 2007 40,4, p. 267)
1857: Michael Faraday discovered colloidal “ruby” gold, demonstrating that nanostructured gold under certain lighting conditions produces different-colored solutions.
1936: Erwin Müller, working at Siemens Research Laboratory, invented the field emission microscope, allowing near-atomic-resolution images of materials.
1947: John Bardeen, William Shockley, and Walter Brattain at Bell Labs discovered the semiconductor transistor and greatly expanded scientific knowledge of semiconductor interfaces, laying the foundation for electronic devices and the Information Age.
1947 transistor, Bell Labs
1950: Victor La Mer and Robert Dinegar developed the theory and a process for growing monodisperse colloidal materials. Controlled ability to fabricate colloids enables myriad industrial uses such as specialized papers, paints, and thin films, even dialysis treatments.
1951: Erwin Müller pioneered the field ion microscope, a means to image the arrangement of atoms at the surface of a sharp metal tip; he first imaged tungsten atoms.
1956: Arthur von Hippel at MIT introduced many concepts of—and coined the term—“molecular engineering” as applied to dielectrics, ferroelectrics, and piezoelectrics
Jack Kilby, about 1960.
1958: Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments originated the concept of, designed, and built the first integrated circuit, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 2000. (Image at left.)
Richard Feynman (Caltech archives)
1959: Richard Feynman of the California Institute of Technology gave what is considered to be the first lecture on technology and engineering at the atomic scale, “There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” at an American Physical Society meeting at Caltech. (Image at right.)
1965: Intel co-founder Gordon Moore described in Electronics magazine several trends he foresaw in the field of electronics. One trend now known as “Moore’s Law,” described the density of transistors on an integrated chip (IC) doubling every 12 months (later amended to every 2 years). Moore also saw chip sizes and costs shrinking with their growing functionality—with a transformational effect on the ways people live and work. That the basic trend Moore envisioned has continued for 50 years is to a large extent due to the semiconductor industry’s increasing reliance on nanotechnology as ICs and transistors have approached atomic dimensions.1974: Tokyo Science University Professor Norio Taniguchi coined the term nanotechnology to describe precision machining of materials to within atomic-scale dimensional tolerances. (See graph at left.)
1981: Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer at IBM’s Zurich lab invented the scanning tunneling microscope, allowing scientists to “see” (create direct spatial images of) individual atoms for the first time. Binnig and Rohrer won the Nobel Prize for this discovery in 1986.
1981: Russia’s Alexei Ekimov discovered nanocrystalline, semiconducting quantum dots in a glass matrix and conducted pioneering studies of their electronic and optical properties.
1985: Rice University researchers Harold Kroto, Sean O’Brien, Robert Curl, and Richard Smalley discovered the Buckminsterfullerene (C60), more commonly known as the buckyball, which is a molecule resembling a soccer ball in shape and composed entirely of carbon, as are graphite and diamond. The team was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their roles in this discovery and that of the fullerene class of molecules more generally. (Artist’s rendering at right.)
1985: Bell Labs’s Louis Brus discovered colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals (quantum dots), for which he shared the 2008 Kavli Prize in Nanotechnology.
1986: Gerd Binnig, Calvin Quate, and Christoph Gerber invented the atomic force microscope, which has the capability to view, measure, and manipulate materials down to fractions of a nanometer in size, including measurement of various forces intrinsic to nanomaterials.
1989: Don Eigler and Erhard Schweizer at IBM’s Almaden Research Center manipulated 35 individual xenon atoms to spell out the IBM logo. This demonstration of the ability to precisely manipulate atoms ushered in the applied use of nanotechnology. (Image at left.)
1990s:Early nanotechnology companies began to operate, e.g., Nanophase Technologies in 1989, Helix Energy Solutions Group in 1990, Zyvex in 1997, Nano-Tex in 1998….
1991: Sumio Iijima of NEC is credited with discovering the carbon nanotube (CNT), although there were early observations of tubular carbon structures by others as well. Iijima shared the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience in 2008 for this advance and other advances in the field. CNTs, like buckyballs, are entirely composed of carbon, but in a tubular shape. They exhibit extraordinary properties in terms of strength, electrical and thermal conductivity, among others. (Image below.)
Carbon nanotubes (courtesy, National Science Foundation). The properties of CNTs are being explored for applications in electronics, photonics, multifunctional fabrics, biology (e.g., as a scaffold to grow bone cells), and communications. See a 2009 Discovery Magazine article for other examples
SEM micrograph of purified nanotube “paper” in which the nanotubes are the fibers (scale bar, 0.001 mm) (courtesy, NASA).
An array of aligned carbon nanotubes, which can act like a radio antenna for detecting light at visible wave- lengths (scale bar 0.001 mm) (courtesy, K. Kempa, Boston College).
1992: C.T. Kresge and colleagues at Mobil Oil discovered the nanostructured catalytic materials MCM-41 and MCM-48, now used heavily in refining crude oil as well as for drug delivery, water treatment, and other varied applications.
MCM-41 is a “mesoporous molecular sieve” silica nanomaterial with a hexagonal or “honeycomb” arrangement of its straight cylindrical pores, as shown in this TEM image (courtesy of Thomas Pauly, Michigan State University).
This TEM image of MCM-41 looks at the straight cylindrical pores as they lie perpendicular to the viewing axis (courtesy of Thomas Pauly, Michigan State University).
1993: Moungi Bawendi of MIT invented a method for controlled synthesis of nanocrystals (quantum dots), paving the way for applications ranging from computing to biology to high-efficiency photovoltaics and lighting. Within the next several years, work by other researchers such as Louis Brus and Chris Murray also contributed methods for synthesizing quantum dots.
1998: The Interagency Working Group on Nanotechnology (IWGN) was formed under the National Science and Technology Council to investigate the state of the art in nanoscale science and technology and to forecast possible future developments. The IWGN’s study and report, Nanotechnology Research Directions: Vision for the Next Decade (1999) defined the vision for and led directly to formation of the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative in 2000.
The progression of steps of using a scanning tunneling microscope tip to “assemble” an iron carbonyl molecule, beginning with Fe (iron) and CO (carbon monoxide) molecules (A), joining them to produce FeCO (B), then adding a second CO molecule (C), to achieve the FECO2 molecule (D). (H.J. Lee, W. Ho, Science 286, 1719 [1999].)
1999: Cornell University researchers Wilson Ho and Hyojune Lee probed secrets of chemical bonding by assembling a molecule [iron carbonyl Fe(CO)2] from constituent components [iron (Fe) and carbon monoxide (CO)] with a scanning tunneling microscope. (Image at left.)
1999: Chad Mirkin at Northwestern University invented dip-pen nanolithography® (DPN®), leading to manufacturable, reproducible “writing” of electronic circuits as well as patterning of biomaterials for cell biology research, nanoencryption, and other applications. (Image below right.)
1999–early 2000’s:Consumer products making use of nanotechnology began appearing in the marketplace, including lightweight nanotechnology-enabled automobile bumpers that resist denting and scratching, golf balls that fly straighter, tennis rackets that are stiffer (therefore, the ball rebounds faster), baseball bats with better flex and “kick,” nano-silver antibacterial socks, clear sunscreens, wrinkle- and stain-resistant clothing, deep-penetrating therapeutic cosmetics, scratch-resistant glass coatings, faster-recharging batteries for cordless electric tools, and improved displays for televisions, cell phones, and digital cameras.
2000: President Clinton launched the National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI) to coordinate Federal R&D efforts and promote U.S. competitiveness in nanotechnology. Congress funded the NNI for the first time in FY2001. The NSET Subcommittee of the NSTC was designated as the interagency group responsible for coordinating the NNI.
2003: Congress enacted the 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act (P.L. 108-153). The act provided a statutory foundation for the NNI, established programs, assigned agency responsibilities, authorized funding levels, and promoted research to address key issues.
Computer simulation of growth of gold nanoshell with silica core and over-layer of gold (courtesy N. Halas, Genome News Network, 2003)
2003: Naomi Halas, Jennifer West, Rebekah Drezek, and Renata Pasqualin at Rice University developed gold nanoshells, which when “tuned” in size to absorb near-infrared light, serve as a platform for the integrated discovery, diagnosis, and treatment of breast cancer without invasive biopsies, surgery, or systemically destructive radiation or chemotherapy.2004: The European Commission adopted the Communication “Towards a European Strategy for Nanotechnology,” COM(2004) 338, which proposed institutionalizing European nanoscience and nanotechnology R&D efforts within an integrated and responsible strategy, and which spurred European action plans and ongoing funding for nanotechnology R&D. (Image at left.)
2004: Britain’s Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering published Nanoscience and Nanotechnologies: Opportunities and Uncertainties advocating the need to address potential health, environmental, social, ethical, and regulatory issues associated with nanotechnology.
2005: Erik Winfree and Paul Rothemund from the California Institute of Technology developed theories for DNA-based computation and “algorithmic self-assembly” in which computations are embedded in the process of nanocrystal growth.
2006: James Tour and colleagues at Rice University built a nanoscale car made of oligo(phenylene ethynylene) with alkynyl axles and four spherical C60 fullerene (buckyball) wheels. In response to increases in temperature, the nanocar moved about on a gold surface as a result of the buckyball wheels turning, as in a conventional car. At temperatures above 300°C it moved around too fast for the chemists to keep track of it! (Image at left.)
2007: Angela Belcher and colleagues at MIT built a lithium-ion battery with a common type of virus that is nonharmful to humans, using a low-cost and environmentally benign process. The batteries have the same energy capacity and power performance as state-of-the-art rechargeable batteries being considered to power plug-in hybrid cars, and they could also be used to power personal electronic devices. (Image at right.)
(L to R) MIT professors Yet-Ming Chiang, Angela Belcher, and Paula Hammond display a virus-loaded film that can serve as the anode of a battery. (Photo: Donna Coveney, MIT News.)
2009–2010: Nadrian Seeman and colleagues at New York University created several DNA-like robotic nanoscale assembly devices. One is a process for creating 3D DNA structures using synthetic sequences of DNA crystals that can be programmed to self-assemble using “sticky ends” and placement in a set order and orientation. Nanoelectronics could benefit: the flexibility and density that 3D nanoscale components allow could enable assembly of parts that are smaller, more complex, and more closely spaced. Another Seeman creation (with colleagues at China’s Nanjing University) is a “DNA assembly line.” For this work, Seeman shared the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience in 2010.
2010: IBM used a silicon tip measuring only a few nanometers at its apex (similar to the tips used in atomic force microscopes) to chisel away material from a substrate to create a complete nanoscale 3D relief map of the world one-one-thousandth the size of a grain of salt—in 2 minutes and 23 seconds. This activity demonstrated a powerful patterning methodology for generating nanoscale patterns and structures as small as 15 nanometers at greatly reduced cost and complexity, opening up new prospects for fields such as electronics, optoelectronics, and medicine. (Image below.)
A rendered image of a nanoscale silicon tip chiseling out the smallest relief map of the world from a substrate of organic molecular glass. Shown middle foreground is the Mediterranean Sea and Europe. (Image courtesy of Advanced Materials.)
2012: The NNI launched two more Nanotechnology Signature Initiatives (NSIs)–Nanosensors and the Nanotechnology Knowledge Infrastructure (NKI)–bringing the total to five NSIs.
2013: -The NNI starts the next round of Strategic Planning, starting with the Stakeholder Workshop. -Stanford researchers develop the first carbon nanotube computer.
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Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
We’ve all heard of existing cancer cures, whether you believe in them or not, you can’t rationally hope they will be made available to plebs for as long a Pharmafia exists.
Goldman Sachs asks in biotech research report: ‘Is curing patients a sustainable business model?’
Goldman Sachs analysts attempted to address a touchy subject for biotech companies, especially those involved in the pioneering “gene therapy” treatment: cures could be bad for business in the long run.
“Is curing patients a sustainable business model?” analysts ask in an April 10 report entitled “The Genome Revolution.”
“The potential to deliver ‘one shot cures’ is one of the most attractive aspects of gene therapy, genetically-engineered cell therapy and gene editing. However, such treatments offer a very different outlook with regard to recurring revenue versus chronic therapies,” analyst Salveen Richter wrote in the note to clients Tuesday. “While this proposition carries tremendous value for patients and society, it could represent a challenge for genome medicine developers looking for sustained cash flow.”
Richter cited Gilead Sciences’ treatments for hepatitis C, which achieved cure rates of more than 90 percent. The company’s U.S. sales for these hepatitis C treatments peaked at $12.5 billion in 2015, but have been falling ever since. Goldman estimates the U.S. sales for these treatments will be less than $4 billion this year, according to a table in the report.
“Gilead is a case in point, where the success of its hepatitis C franchise has gradually exhausted the available pool of treatable patients,” the analyst wrote. “In the case of infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, curing existing patients also decreases the number of carriers able to transmit the virus to new patients, thus the incident pool also declines … Where an incident pool remains stable (eg, in cancer) the potential for a cure poses less risk to the sustainability of a franchise.”
The analyst didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report suggested three potential solutions for biotech firms:
“Solution 1: Address large markets: Hemophilia is a $9-10bn WW market (hemophilia A, B), growing at ~6-7% annually.”
“Solution 2: Address disorders with high incidence: Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) affects the cells (neurons) in the spinal cord, impacting the ability to walk, eat, or breathe.”
“Solution 3: Constant innovation and portfolio expansion: There are hundreds of inherited retinal diseases (genetics forms of blindness) … Pace of innovation will also play a role as future programs can offset the declining revenue trajectory of prior assets.”
So you don’t see anyone pushing for any cures.
CONSUMER AFFAIRS
Biden’s moonshot examined: Researchers say cancer cure is a long ways off
The White House is pressing ahead, saying a combination of research on cures and prevention efforts will end the scourge.
Congress has appropriated $1.8 billion for the “cancer moonshot” President Joe Biden began in 2016, and the positive reaction to Biden’s request for more suggests it’s eager to maintain the momentum. | Evan Vucci/AP Photo
President Joe Biden’s pledge to “end cancer as we know it” is a rare sliver of common ground between Democrats and Republicans.
Congress has appropriated $1.8 billion for the “cancer moonshot” Biden began in 2016, and the positive reaction to Biden’s request for more during Tuesday’s State of the Union suggests it’s eager to maintain the momentum.
But cancer researchers are less unified about the moonshot than Washington policymakers. A contrarian cadre question whether the money appropriated is being well spent. Cancer research is funded well enough, they said, and investing more in high-tech individualized treatments is more likely to help the wealthy live longer than it is to save those most likely to die of the disease: the poor and people of color.
“It’s a lot harder than getting a man to the moon,” Gilbert Welch, an internist and senior investigator at the Center for Surgery and Public Health at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said of curing cancer. “It’s a very complex set of diseases. You need to think of it as a family of diseases. The moon is just one thing. Just gotta get there. This is hundreds of different things.”
Biden wants to press ahead on a bipartisan initiative. He has called on Congress to maintain funding for the 2016 law that launched the moonshot, the 21st Century Cures Act. He pledged to cut cancer death rates by 50 percent in the next 25 years and to turn fatal cancers into treatable diseases.
Biden also has asked Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1971. Reauthorization would help the National Cancer Institute support researchers around the country by building clinical trial networks and more robust data systems, according to Danielle Carnival, the White House’s moonshot coordinator.
But some experts, such as Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former White House adviser, said there’s plenty of money devoted to cancer research. The National Cancer Institute had a nearly $6.4 billion budget for cancer research in 2021 and its annual spend has been growing since 2015. Cancer non-profits like the American Cancer Institute also raise hundreds of millions of dollars every year.
President Joe Biden has asked Congress to reauthorize the National Cancer Act, signed into law by President Richard Nixon in 1971. | AP Photo
Additionally, the pharmaceutical industry is incentivized to put money behind increasingly lucrative cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. Research shows that from 2010 to 2019 revenue generated from cancer medicines increased 70 percent among the top 10 pharmaceutical companies to reach $95 billion.
And not everyone thinks more funding is a good thing. “There’s so much money sloshing around,” Welch said of the cancer industry, adding, “Both academic and biotech or industry are excessively enthusiastic and just trying to put out as many products as they can.”
We’ve overinvested in cancer, according to Welch, especially in expensive cancer drugs with modest or unproven benefit for patients and in screenings — Welch’s research area. He’s particularly opposed to the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act, sponsored by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), which would require Medicare to cover cancer blood tests if they’re approved by the FDA. From Welch’s vantage point, benefits from screenings have been exaggerated, while its harms have been minimized.
Other critics, such as Keith Humphreys, a public health professor at Stanford University who has published academic articles on the link between alcohol use and cancer, see cancer prevention as a more immediate way to save lives.
Managing disease and curing it
The president’s agenda goes beyond money, Carnival told POLITICO, emphasizing prevention efforts, such as improving nutrition for kids, discouraging smoking, and decreasing environmental risks.
“We’re going to have to reach more people with the tools we already have and those we develop along the way,” Carnival said. “The purview is much broader than research. I don’t think anyone would say we have all of the research advancements and knowledge and treatments that we need today to end cancer as we know it.”
Those closely involved in developing cutting-edge cancer therapeutics said the field has shifted dramatically in recent years. It’s gone from treating cancer as a chronic disease, to trying to cure patients.
During his medical fellowship in the early 2000s, improving patient survival by months or years was the goal, explained Marco Davila, a physician-scientist at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, N.Y., who helped pioneer some of the first CAR-T cell therapies for patients with blood cancer.
Since then, treatment breakthroughs for some previously incurable cancer have upended the cancer-as-chronic-disease philosophy. Now, doctors and researchers believe cancer-curing therapies are within reach. “It’s changed the nature of how we manage patients. There’s that option there. It’s on the table,” Davila said.
For Davila, moonshot funds earmarked for cancer research and therapies created a new pool of money for his work. It doesn’t fix the problem of underfunded science as a whole, he said, but it makes his work as a cancer researcher a priority.
“It’s great for us, because that’s our field. It’s also great for patients, because cancer is still going to be one of the most common causes of people’s death in the United States,” Davila said. (In the U.S., it’s second behind heart disease, taking more than 600,000 lives in 2020, the most recent year for which there are statistics.)
Indeed, since the late 1980s, scientists have developed effective treatments for lung cancer, breast cancer and Hodgkin’s lymphoma. There are caveats, of course. They don’t work for all patients.
“It’s maybe 20 percent, 30 percent,” Davila said. The goal now is to keep improving those cure rates over time — to 50 percent or 60 percent, for example.
“Will it get to 100 percent in your lifetime? I don’t know,” he said.
What Davila does know is that each 10 percent cure-rate increase means saving tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of lives.
‘Prevention takes action’
But some cancer experts said there’s a downside to the shift toward precision medicine and individualized treatments. Attempting to test everyone or characterize every tumor more precisely is a bit of magical thinking, according to Welch.
“The more you subset people, the more difficult it is to know whether your treatments help. It’s too small of a group,” Welch said. “It used to be just lung cancer. Now we’ve got eight genetic variants we’re testing in adenocarcinomas of the lung,” he added.
“Ironically, the more precise we get, the more types of cancer there are, as we genetically signature each cancer, all of a sudden we don’t really know what to do with any one of them.”
Others think there needs to be a fundamental shift away from screening and treatment and toward preventing cancer in the first place.
“It’s terrific when we develop new treatments for cancer, but it certainly is always better to prevent something than to treat it,” said Humphreys, who served as a drug policy adviser under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
“Very high-end, complicated treatments are never going to be accessible to the whole population,” he added. “Congress could definitely do more.”
“We have very good evidence that when we raise the federal alcohol tax that fewer people die.”
Keith Humphreys, public health professor at Stanford University
Tobacco taxation is widely considered one of the most effective practices in preventing people from starting to smoke in the first place, leading existing smokers to quit, and reducing deaths from tobacco-related cancers. Humphreys said Congress could take the same taxation approach to the alcohol industry. “We have very good evidence that when we raise the federal alcohol tax that fewer people die,” he said.
While broad blood-based cancer screening may not be a cost-effective strategy for stopping cancer early, targeted cancer screening for colorectal, breast, cervical, prostate, and lung cancers could be. Rules could stoke participation or ensure that patients on Medicaid, who are more likely to be at risk of cancer, are getting regular screenings.
“It’s important to acknowledge that our biggest success in cancer really reflects prevention,” Welch said. “It’s nothing fancy. It’s discouraging cigarette smoking.”
There’s a lot of money already in the moonshot cancer system. It just needs to be redirected and allocated differently, said Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and former White House adviser.
The White House touts prevention in its moonshot agenda. In 2022, the first year of the reignited moonshot, the FDA proposed rules to prohibit menthol cigarettes. Among other agenda items, the moonshot program plans to increase cancer screenings in at-risk communities and facilitate donations of sunscreen to schools and youth organizations.
But prevention is a trickier cancer-prevention mechanism than treatment. It could mean cleaning up Superfund sites or removing lead pipes to reduce environmental cancer risk. It often requires people to change their behavior — to drink less alcohol and exercise more or stop smoking — a more challenging mission at the population level than directing patients to take a pill or offering them a diagnostic test.
“It’s not necessarily clear how one spends money on prevention,” Welch acknowledged. “It’s much easier to sell a test or a drug. It’s a concrete thing. Prevention takes action on the part of individuals,” he said. “You gotta say, that’s harder.”
More funding wouldn’t necessarily solve the problem, according to Emanuel.
There’s a lot of money already in the system. It just needs to be redirected and allocated differently, Emanuel explained.
Who is spending that money also matters. The government sponsors roughly one-third of clinical cancer research, according to Emanuel. Industry accounts for the remaining two-thirds of funding. “It’s good that they’ve got a lot of drugs that they’re testing. What’s bad is having industry shape the clinical research agenda, because industry has a bias.”
Emanuel’s solution: stronger government leadership and more non-industry sponsors.
“The NCI [National Cancer Institute] is the biggest NIH institute,” Emanuel said. “It’s not exactly like they’re starving.”
You also have to be a monster to sell halving the cases long after your death as a “cure”
Biden keeps rambling about curing cancer because he and Obama set up and funded the delusional mRNA industry, which was initially aimed at cancer. The Moderna guys promised him this and he ran with it. He still does, poor dumb fv<k…
And if you have a MAGA hat, don’t flash it before reading this:
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Thanks Goodness for independent journalists like Ben Swann! And the SILVIEW.media archives preserving this, as YouTube erased our channels.
This fact should be the premise of any discussion about propaganda and disinformation in US, Canada, EU and every country where the government has this type of power. Historically, all governments to establish a propaganda monopoly.
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IF YOU’RE READING THIS, YOU’RE PROBABLY TARGETED BY A GOVERNMENT OR TWO. SO I MADE SOMETHING FOR YOU. SEE DETAILS / ORDER
“ALL LICENSED BAR ATTORNEYS – ATTORNERS – IN THE U.S. OWE THEIR ALLEGIANCE AND GIVE THEIR SOLEMN OATH IN PLEDGE TO THE CROWN TEMPLE, REALIZING THIS OR NOT.
This is simply due to the fact that all Bar Associations throughout the world are signatories and franchises to the international Bar Association located at the Inns of Court at Crown Temple. Although they vehemently deny it, all Bar Associations in the U.S., such as the American Bar Association, the Florida Bar, or California Bar Association, are franchises to the Crown.
The Inns of Court to the Crown Temple use the Banking and Judicial system of the City of London – a sovereign and independent territory which is not a part of Great Britain (just as Washington City, as DC was called in the 1800s, is not a part of the north American states, nor is it a state) to defraud, coerce, and manipulate the American people. These Fleet Street bankers and lawyers are committing crimes in America under the guise and color of law. They are known collectively as the “Crown.” Their lawyers are actually Templar Bar Attornies, not lawyers.” – Source
Everyone knows Alison Natahn was appointed by Obama and previously served as associate White House counsel for President Barack Obama. What else?
“In 2004, Nathan served as Associate National Counsel for Kerry-Edwards 2004. She also served as the voter protection coordinator in several primary elections on behalf of the Obama campaign and continues to advise the campaign on election law and voter protection issues and was a fellow at NYU Law School and a visting Professor at Fordham University Law School until assuming her post as White House Assc. Counsel. In February of 2011, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York nominated Alison to become a Federal Judge for the Southern District of New York.”
On November 17, 2021, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate Nathan to serve as a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; her nomination was sent to the Senate the following day. President Biden nominated Nathan to the seat being vacated by Judge Rosemary S. Pooler, who will take senior status upon confirmation of her successor.Her nomination is pending before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
At Cornell, she was a member of the Quill and Dagger secret society
“This senior honor society formed in Cornell University is considered one of the most prominent of all societies, up there with Yale’s Skull and Bones. Even the New York Times wrote that it was seriously hard to get into, back in 1929, calling it “The highest non-scholastic honor within reach of undergraduates.” Names of all newly tapped members are published in The Cornell Daily Sun every semester, while meetings and activities remain closed.
Many members of the university’s staff are alumni of the society, and two sons, a grandson and grandson-in-law of the university’s president Jacob Gould Schurman were members. Between the years of 1913-1984, one former Quill and Dagger member could be found in the US congress every year. There are currently members in the Obama administration including Deputy Secretary of Labor Seth Harris and Associate Counsel to the President Alison J. Nathan. It’s rumored that hotelier Andre Balias (who has been linked to high profile stars including Salma Hayek) is a Quill and Dagger alumni.” – The Richest Magazine, 2014
The meetings and proceedings of Quill and Dagger are closed, and the society’s contributions and activities on campus are typically concealed. Membership remained secret for a brief period after its founding, but the names of newly tapped members are now published in The Cornell Daily Sun each semester.
Thomas W. Jones[31] (1969) – Chairman and CEO of Citigroup‘s Global Investment Management (1999–2004); President and COO of TIAA-CREF (1993–1997); created the James A. Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony at Cornell University; spokesman for students in the Willard Straight Hall takeover in 1969; Cornell University trustee
Walter C. Teagle[2] (1900) – President (1917–1937) and Chairman (1937–1942) of Standard Oil [Rockefeller]; namesake and donor of Cornell University’s Teagle Hall; Cornell University trustee
James J. Cosgrove[72] (1909) – General Counsel (1929–1948) and Chairman (1948–1952) of Continental Oil
George M. Schurman[14] (1913) – son of Jacob Gould Schurman, Cornell University’s third president and U.S. Ambassador to China and Germany
Jacob Gould Schurman, Jr.[16] (1917) – Chief Magistrate of New York City; Cornell University trustee; son of Jacob Gould Schurman, Cornell University’s third president and U.S. Ambassador to China and Germany
CORNELL’S War Memorial
From Wikipedia:
Beginning in 1925, Quill and Dagger members spearheaded the erection of a permanent memorial to Cornellians who served in the First World War. Based on the suggestion of F. Ellis Jackson, a Quill and Dagger member, the architectural plan for West Campus was modified to include the War Memorial structure. Funds for its construction were raised from alumni by a committee chaired by Robert E. Treman, also a society member. The War Memorial was dedicated on May 23, 1931 with a national radio address by President Herbert Hoover. It was erected in remembrance of the 264 Cornellian casualties and nearly 9,000 Cornellians who served during the war. It is the largest of several tributes to military service and sacrifice at Cornell University.
Because of Quill and Dagger’s contributions to the War Memorial’s construction, the society was granted exclusive use of the top floors of the northern tower.[27] The inscription above the entrance to the building reads, “This tower is a memorial to the men of Quill and Dagger who in giving their lives for their country were true to Cornell traditions.” The mural in the first floor War Memorial Shrine also depicts a quill and a dagger prominently, although official descriptions discuss their meaning as a palm and sword.[25]
The War Memorial structure is filled with symbolism relevant to the society and its ideals. For example, six symbols appear on shields around the top of the Quill and Dagger Tower.[citation needed] The east and west sides of the Tower depict four historic variations of a cross: the Latin cross, Saint Andrew’s Cross, swastika, and Maltese cross. These four symbols have varying heraldic, religious, and secular meanings including loyalty, piety, bravery, martyrdom, humility, and sacrifice. They also are connected with historic chivalric orders such as the Knights Hospitaller and Knights Templar. The south side of the tower depicts an ankh, which symbolizes life or the power to give and sustain life. Next to the ankh is a menorah, whose light has traditionally represented knowledge or enlightenment.
1. THE CO-DEFENDANTS
What leftoids and media won’t tell you is that Ghislaine is actually not sitting alone on that bench. So the web of interests is even more gigantic than we previously thought.
“It doesn’t seem right that only Maxwell is in the dock. There were others who facilitated the abuse and this makes it seem like it was only her”, one woman, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Telegraph.
“Ghislaine continues to have many friends. I know this because we receive mail, emails, letters and so forth from her friends, but we live in a world where people are cancelled for friendships of this type.”
BONUS: The Comeys. Or should I say “US Government”?
US Government should be a co-defendant in this trial, and, instead, it mocks the investigator, prosecutor and judge. What are the chances this turns out well?
This came up later, and surely there are plenty more items that can be added to a list such as this. Should I change the title to 4.5? Maybe not, as that’s about enough to make the point. But for what it’s worth, also contemplate this (and who knows what else I might add in the future).
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Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
In an increasingly baby-minded world, I had to pull out the crayons again. I feel embarrassed for the human race that I have to explain this and so many people need to see it.
“On the legal blog Dorf on Law, in an article by Sherry F. Colb, a Cornell University law professor. Colb argues that, because eugenics is defined as “a movement . . . aimed at improving the genetic composition of the human race,” it is inapt to call selective abortions “eugenic,” because a woman who chooses abortion after a Down-syndrome diagnosis “understands that she is thereby doing virtually nothing to alter the human genome.”
But Colb ignores another meaning of the adjective “eugenic”: “relating to or fitted for the production of good offspring.” Though the term “eugenics” undoubtedly evokes a program of controlled, selective breeding to reshape a population, it is entirely accurate to describe as “eugenic” an individual choice to eliminate a child deemed “unfit,” even in just one instance.
Colb concludes with this argument:
What if everyone pregnant with a DS fetus terminates? What then? Do we want to live in a world in which DS people are extinct? No. There is no question but that people with DS, like people with all sorts of other challenges, enrich our world and teach us to tolerate those who differ from ourselves. It would indeed be sad if the world contained no one with DS. But just because we want a group of people in the world does not entitle us to conscript individuals to create such people in their wombs.
But of course, forbidding abortions chosen on the basis of disability cannot rightly be described as “conscripting individuals to create such people in their wombs.” When a pregnant mother receives a prenatal Down-syndrome diagnosis, she has already created a human being who might have Down syndrome (though such tests have been known to be wrong). Forbidding a woman from actively killing her unborn child based on its disability is not the same thing as conscripting her into creating that child.
That defenders of legal abortion are reduced to such arguments is telling. In the end, it doesn’t matter much whether we can rightly label certain abortions “eugenic” or whether one side of the debate has the most accurate history of racial discrimination and population control.
What matters is that, in Ohio, lawmakers have laid down a marker establishing that it is wrong and therefore that it is now illegal to end the life of an unborn human being simply because he or she is diagnosed with a chromosomal abnormality. Supporters of abortion refuse to respond to this argument, because to do so would expose the logic of all abortion, which, regardless of disabilities, grants some human beings the power to declare the lives of others not worth living.”
Gates conducted an interview with Bill Moyers on PBS to explain the rational for his charitable contributions:
MOYERS: You could have chosen any field, any subject, any issue and poured billions into it and been celebrated. How did you come to this one? To global health?
GATES: The one issue that really grabbed me as urgent were issues related to population… reproductive health.
And maybe the most interesting thing I learned is this thing that’s still surprising when I tell other people which is that, as you improve health in a society, population growth goes down.
You know I thought it was…before I learned about it, I thought it was paradoxical. Well if you improve health, aren’t you just dooming people to deal with such a lack of resources where they won’t be educated or they won’t have enough food? You know, sort of a Malthusian view of what would take place.
And the fact that health leads parents to decide, “okay, we don’t need to have as many children because the chance of having the less children being able to survive to be adults and take care of us, means we don’t have to have 7 or 8 children.” Now that was amazing.
So Gates is interested in improving health because he believes that would reduce the amount of people on the planet. His goal is not to help people but to eliminate them. He states that if people are healthy that they will want fewer kids but he doesn’t offer evidence to support this and frankly it doesn’t appear to make much sense. Why would a sick person who could die at anytime want to have kids if they knew there was a good possibility they wouldn’t be around to support the child? Does Gates really believe this or is this just his cover story so not arouse any suspicions about his true motivations? Gates also admits that he notes that he previously shared the opinion with Malthus that health should not be improved because that would encourage population growth. If you remember Malthus wanted villages built near sewage to encourage disease. Now he doesn’t disagree with Malthus that population growth is bad he only disagrees on how to reduce population.
I don’t believe that Gates’ actually thinks that improving health reduces population. I think that he is using global health as a stalking horse to eliminate population. Gates’ could donate money to provide basic healthcare to poor Africans like Doctors Without Borders, he could build hospitals, and he could help provide low cost health insurance to the millions who can’t afford it. Bill Gates money could be spent improving access to safe drinking water and providing sanitation services. His money is spent on any of this noble The elites of the world choose to spend the tax dollars of the American middle class on contraceptives, abortions, and vaccines. Kenyan gynecologist Dr. Stephen Karanja observed, “USAID and other Non-Governmental organizations funded mainly by the U.S. Government have targeted our people with a ruthlessness that makes one shudder. Our health sector has collapsed. Thousands of the Kenyan people will die of malaria, whose treatment costs a few cents, in health facilities whose shelves are stocked to the roof with millions of dollars worth of pills, IUDs, Norplant, Depo-Provera, most of which are supplied with American money.”
“Many are maimed for life. The hypertension, blood clots, heart failure, liver pathology and menstrual disorders cannot be treated due to the poor health services…. Malaria is epidemic in Kenya. Mothers die from this disease every day because there is no chloroquine, when instead we have huge stockpiles of contraceptives.” – SOURCE – I used this not for authoritativeness, but for logic and because it very much speaks my mind too. And I fact-checked it.
IT WORKS BOTH WAYS, AS YOU BALANCE AND STEER IT. SOURCE
THE AFRICAN PERSPECTIVE ON IT
Population Control is GENOCIDE
(This interview with Sister Aset was first published in Global Africa Pocket News (GAP News) Vol. 1, No. 7 Sept. 1994. It was submitted to Caribbean Times in January ’96 but never published) #14 SOURCE
What is population control?
The United Nations Population Fund would like us to believe that it is a benign process of ‘voluntary’ application of ‘family planning’ to control the ‘rate of growth’ of the world’s ‘sustainable’ population within ‘manageable’ levels in relation to the amount of ‘food’ and ‘consumable goods’ the earth can produce. That is as far from the truth as the divide between the very richest and the very poorest people on this planet. The truth is that population control is the process by which Global Europe (whites, Caucasians, Aryans) seeks to guarantee its perpetual domination of the rest of the human race because of its own fear of annihilation. According to Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, it is this fear based on the fact of their numerical minority status and their low level of surface melanin, which drives them to commit the most atrocious crimes against humanity, in particular, the most feared nation of all, Global Africa (Black people).
Is it true that the world is over crowded and moving towards an unsustainable population level?
No. Absolutely not. Overcrowding can be measured by one method only that is whether there are too many people to fit in the space available. The most densely populated continent area in the world is Europe, (see GAP News #7, Population Figures), but do Europeans think there are too many people in Europe? Of course not. But they believe there are too many African and Asian people in Europe. That is not overcrowding that is racism.
What about all those starving Africans? If they can’t feed themselves surely, there must be too many of them.
No, that is not the case. Those “starving Africans”, Asians and other “Third World” peoples produce most of the world’s surplus food. Most of the food they produce are luxury or raw, unprocessed goods which are sold cheaply as exports and re-imported as expensive processed foods. The main reason though, why there appears to be not enough food to go around is not because the so-called third world cannot feed itself, it is because Global Europe, less than 25% of the world’s population uses or wastes over 80% of the worlds food goods (consumables) but produces less than 15% of it. So the “third world” make up 75% of the world’s population, produce 85% of the world’s consumables and consume less than 20% of all that is consumed. If they consumed as much as they produced, Global Europe would be dying of starvation, not Africa.
Is the African population expanding too rapidly?
Let’s look at the evidence: After being systematically depopulated for 400 years, Africa is now the least populated continent in the world with a density one-sixth of Europe’s. Africa’s death rate is more than twice that of Europe. To be level pegging, Africa’s death rate should also be one-sixth of Europe’s. When these dishonest people talk about population they make reference only to birth rate. They show that Africa’s birth rate is nearly three times that of the European rate, but forget to mention that the infant mortality rate is 5 times higher in Africa. They never talk about density except in reference to Asia or to say that “Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa”. They forget to say it was a quarter the density of any country in Europe. They forget also, to tell you that in order for Africa to get to the same population density as Europe (is Europe overpopulated?) the African birth-rate has to be more than 12 times that of Europe (6 times if the death rate becomes equal) for a whole generation. So, when they talk about “equalizing” or reducing the African birth rate, while at the same time nurturing conflict, manufacturing famine, and importing disease to increase the death rate further, you begin to get the picture. If the birth rates were made equal and everything else remained the same as they are now, each time Europe’s population doubled Africa’s population would be halved. The world’s population may become “stabilized” as they like to say it, but the percentage ratio between the nations would continue changing to their advantage. (See GAP News #5) It is understandable then, why Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a senior Vatican official cried that if the precepts of the UN Population Control Conference in Cairo were to be implemented the world would experience “the most disastrous massacre in history”. He should know, it was his organization, the Roman Catholic church, which sanctified the trade in African lives, resulting in the death of over 200 million people. Some of the liars say that deaths in war time make very little difference to the population growth because after a war birth rates usually increase to compensate. Certainly, that is true when mostly male soldiers are killed. But when two thirds of the female population are murdered, like the Rwandan slaughter, it would take 4 or 5 generations to get back to where it was before the war. And that is the key. The women. Global Europe have done everything they could to destroy our people but we are still here and still strong. They are now trying, through an apparently limitless line of African and Asian female mercenaries, posing as leaders, to co-opt us. To convince us that regardless of our particular environmental conditions, contrary to our own community’s social and economic needs, it would be in our individual interests to have fewer or no children at all. Women have the power to determine the fertility or sterility of our nation. It is imperative that we do not allow ourselves to be misled into committing generational suicide. We carry the future of our nation in our hands. We are here because those before us gave us life. Let us give life to our children. We deserve to live.
ABORTION FOR EUGENICS: CONSPIRACY OR SIMPLE CONSEQUENCE?
How one answers the question whether abortion is a tool of racial, gender, or disability eugenics depends very much on how the question is asked. Is legalized abortion a eugenicist conspiracy — a deliberate plot on the part of those favoring abortion rights to reduce the number of people of a given race, sex, or disability? Surely not. At the very least, such motivations form no part of the modern argument for abortion rights. Does unrestricted legal abortion-choice produce a disparate impact resulting in disproportionate numbers of abortions ending the lives of minority, female, and disabled fetuses? Undeniably. The aborted are disproportionately Black, female, and disabled. Is the right to abortion sometimes used, by those exercising the abortion-choice, for eugenics purposes — specifically for the purpose of aborting on the basis of race, sex, or disability? Unquestionably. Some — but not all — of the abortion–disparate impact is attributable to intentional decisions to abort based on a trait of the baby that otherwise would be born.
These are three different questions. Justice Thomas’s concurrence in Box keeps them distinct. Murray’s article, in attempting to critique Thomas, tends to smush these separate questions together in a mildly confusing way.
Begin with Justice Thomas’s Box concurrence itself. Thomas’s opinion compiles an impressive and rightly disturbing narrative of evidence that family planning and abortion advocates in the past embraced the desirability of abortion as an instrument for achieving racial eugenics and for culling persons with disabilities from the population. (There appears to be no evidence that early abortion advocates ever favored abortion for gender-eugenics purposes — aborting girls because they are girls.18×18. This is probably most simply explained by the fact that the technology for discerning the fetus’s sex before birth was not readily available until relatively recently. See, e.g., Juan Stocker & Lorraine Evens, Fetal Sex Determination by Ultrasound, 50 OBSTETRICS & GYNECOLOGY 462, 465 (1977).
Han Chinese academics in Xinjiang in recent years have blamed the high birth rate among the Uyghurs and Kazaks for fostering religious extremism and poverty. According to Zenz’s research, government and academic papers have referred to the birth rate of ethnic minorities in the region as “excessive” and have claimed that the population growth and concentration of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang “weakens national identity and identification with the Chinese Nation-Race (Zhonghua Minzu).”
I’ve been meaning to put this together for this a long time now, but we owe it to An0maly that I arrived to finish it, he tipped me over with this great brand new video, where he kills it in his own terms. I just felt I need to round it up and bring more depth and definition that he can’t possibly achieve in his format. The guy is one of the clearest minds on Internet right now.
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Aliko Dangote Foundation The Alphawood Foundation The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Aphorism Foundation AT&T Lynne & Marc R. Benioff The Bluhm Family Charitable Foundation Blum-Kovler Foundation/Peter & Judy Kovler The Boeing Company Amy & Joshua Boger The Eli & Edythe Broad Foundation John & Jacolyn Bucksbaum Family Foundation The California Endowment Sonya & Tom Campion Marcy Carsey The Chicago Community Trust* Robert & Jane Clark Stephen Cloobeck Colleen & Bradley Bell Charitable Foundation Ron Conway Family James Crane & Whitney Wheeler Crane The Crown Family Ann & John Doerr Ray & Dagmar Dolby Family Fund The Donovan Family Exelon Corporation Fred Eychaner Tony Fernandes Fidelity Charitable (4) The Ford Foundation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The Gibbons Scattone Family Foundation Scott Miller & Tim Gill The Goldberg Family Foundation The John & Marcia Goldman Foundation Lisa & Douglas Goldman Fund Goldman Sachs Philanthropy Fund Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Gift Fund Agnes Gund The Harris Family Foundation The Hauptman Family Foundation Health Care Service Corporation Mel Heifetz Michelle Yee & Reid Hoffman Barbara & Amos Hostetter Andrew Houston Hutchins Family Foundation Iger Bay Foundation Illinois Tool Works Irving Harris Foundation–Joan Harris Hamilton & Amabel James The Jewish Communal Fund The Joyce Foundation JP Initiative, LLC Kapor Center for Social Impact Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation & Competition in Healthcare Jonathan & Jeannie Lavine, Trustees Jeff & Erica Lawson Ambassador Fay Hartog-Levin & Daniel Levin The Reginald F. Lewis Family Foundation, Inc. Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Joe & Rika Mansueto Demond & Kia Martin Foundation McCormick Foundation Katie McGrath & J.J. Abrams Family Foundation Microsoft Corporation Scott Nathan & Laura DeBonis New York Community Trust Nike Foundation President Barack H. Obama & Mrs. Michelle Obama The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation Todd Park & Amy Geng The Parker Foundation Polsky Foundation Jeanne & John Kevin Poorman through JKP Family Foundation Linda & Richard Price Family Fund Pritzker Traubert Foundation Prudential Foundation Rattner Family Foundation Rhimes Family Foundation Richard Paul & Ellen S. Richman Private Family Trust Foundation Robert & Jane Toll Foundation Victoria & John Rogers Rosenthal Family Foundation Amy & Kirk Rudy Cari & Michael J. Sacks Schlosstein Hartley Foundation Barbara Schmidt Service Station Foundation* The Share Fund II at The Tides Foundation* Beth & David Shaw Jon & Kimberly Shirley Silicon Valley Community Foundation Ian Simmons through ImpactAssets Donor Advised Fund Marilyn & Jim Simons Someland Foundation Steans Family Foundation Mrs. Marjorie Susman & Ambassador Louis B. Susman Sandra & John W. Thompson Laurie & Jeff Ubben Evan Williams & Sara Morishige W.K. Kellogg Foundation The Anne Wojcicki Foundation (YouTube CEO sister, Google owner partner and ex-wife) Kate Capshaw & Steven Spielberg’s The Wunderkinder Foundation Wayne Jordan & Quinn Delaney Mary & Jeffrey Zients Robert & Carol Wolf Family Foundation
$500,001 to $999,999
Cindy & Alan Horn Jill & Avram Glazer
$250,001 to $500,000
Ms. Patricia Passmore Alley The Atlantic Philanthropies* James & Mary Bell Mark Bergman & Susan Gibson The Brin Wojcicki Foundation (Same Google love triangle as above) Vinton Cerf & Sigrid Cerf Christine & John Bakalar Charitable Fund Tim Collins Lester, Chanel, & Javon Coney Don & Anne Edwards Charitable Fund Dr. Felice Frankel Connie & Sankey Williams The Jewish Communal Fund Nicholas & Monica Logothetis The Philip & Tammy Murphy Family Foundation Alison & Mark Pincus Kim & Nicholas Romano Dona & Sam Scott Foundation John Shulman & Alison Bernstein Shulman Silicon Valley Community Foundation Barbara Stiefel
$100,001 to $250,000
The Alter Group Michael & Ellen Alter Anne & Bruce Strohm Family Giving Fund Jay Kriz Blahnik & Ryan Kriz Blahnik+ Jedd & Dara Canty Edward & Paula Fearon FedEx Corporation Fisher Family Foundation Jason & Crystal Goldman Brett J. Hart & Dontrey Britt-Hart Ambassador Bruce Heyman & Vicki Heyman* Horowitz Family Foundation Ambassador Ronald Kirk & Mrs. Matrice Ellis-Kirk Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation, Charles Ashby Lewis & Penny Bender Sebring Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Foundation* Edward & Paula Hughes Pamela & William Hurley Karla Jurvetson Tom Kartsotis The Kresge Foundation Minow Family Foundation Thomas Nides & Virginia Moseley Gilbert Omenn & Martha Darling Ulice Payne, Jr. The Rockhaven Charitable Fund Skoll Foundation Stripe, Inc. Andrew Tobias Ranvir & Adarsh Trehan/Trehan Foundation The San Francisco 49ers Kevin Xu The University of Chicago The Rumi Foundation Aaron & Ana Zamost
$10,000 to $100,000
Jim & Wendy Abrams Rona & Jeffrey Abramson Marcie & Nick Alexos Jack Alotto Alpenglow Foundation A.L. Mailman Family Foundation Melissa Alvarado* AMC Networks* Amy & Michael Tiemann Charitable Gift Fund The Apatow-Mann Family Foundation, Inc. John Atkinson & Bonnie Atkinson Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity at Columbia University Priya V. Balakrishnan Rye Barcott Charles Barkley Baskin Family Foundation Corinne Anne Basler Bob Baxley* Big Win Philanthropy Dr. Anita Blanchard & Martin Nesbitt John Boiler & Kari Boiler Pamela Bass-Bookey & Harry Bookey Andrew & Ellen Bradley Brayton Family Charitable Fund Douglas & Teresa Brown John & Carla Brozovich Burch Giving Fund Dwight & Antoinette Bush Calendly LLC* Casey Family Programs Beverly Castleberry Christine Chang The Cheka Fund at The Miami Foundation* Lila Cherri Chuck Lorre Family Foundation James Clark Craig Newmark Philanthropies Jesse Crowe The Patricia Crown Family Stephen & Ayesha Curry Family Foundation Beverly Dale Gilbert Omenn & Martha Darling Deutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag Michael Donaghue Jackie Brown Duncan Judith Estrin The Fine & Greenwald Foundation Paul & Mary Finnegan Franklin & Marshall College Dave Free* Eiichi Fukushima Drs. Helene D. Gayle & Stephen N. Keith Steve & Lisa Gerber Robert & Susan Glovsky Fund The Goolsbee Family Mark Gordon Barbara Grasseschi & Anthony Crabb Anastasia Greene* GRoW @ Annenberg Hamlin Kurihara Fund Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation Megan Holmes Estate of Nancy Hom John Hynes Inner Loop Capital* Jack & Jill of America Foundation, Inc. Kenneth & Lisa Jackson Paul & Catherine Jefferys Fund Luci Baines Johnson Debbie Johnston Charitable Gift Fund* Heather Jones Manju Karkare & Jayant Khadilkar Kate Somerville Skincare LLC* John & Jennifer Kelly* John Lamonica Lawrence Z. & Jaqueline A. Stern Foundation Rodney & Sue Lee Jane A. Lehman & Alan G. Lehman Foundation John & Jill Levi Leslie Lewis Mr. Jeremy Liew & Ms. Ranee Lan The Lostand Foundation Susan Lubetkin Joseph Macari Marin Community Foundation Jane & Richard Mescon Weston Milliken The MJK Family Foundation Robert Rivkin & Cindy Moelis The Museum of Ice Cream on Behalf of AlunaGeorge Nancy E. Myers The National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation The Nayar Family Foundation NBA Players Association Foundation Doris J. Newton Marti Noxon* The Oakland Athletics The Opportunity Fund Ambassador Robert & Mitsuko Orr Peter Orzsag Pamela Valinet Charitable Mary & David Peirce* Penny Norman Trust Carol & David Pensky Kathryn Petit Mr. Anh Pham The Phillips Family Hasmit Popat Lauri Altman Posner & Brian Posner* Kevin Quail Thomas & Sheila Rabaut Revada Foundation The Revlis Foundation The Friedman Family Georgina T. Russo Juan Sabater Salesforce.org Mrs. Bettylu Saltzman & Dr. Paul Saltzman Shiva Sarram & Drew Pearson* Mr. Andrew Schapiro & Ms. Tamar Newberger Margaret Schink Segal Family Foundation Eugene Sepulveda & Steven Tomlinson Mary & Charles Sethness Charitable Foundation Susan D. Shenk* Ruth Simmons Diane Meyer Simon Simply Southern* Charles Smith Hortense Snower Ken & Lissa Solomon Neil & Carla Subin* Suvoda LLC* Suggs Family Foundation Susan Sher & Neil Cohen Fund at The Chicago Community Foundation Chade-Meng Tan Pedro Torres-Mackie Craig Troyer Jeremy Tworek Under Armour, Inc* Christopher P. Valenti Charitable Fund Glen de Vries* Lester Ward Giving Account Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz* Warner/Roback Family Fund* Weinberg-Newton Family Foundation Sherrie & David Westin The Wildbasil Fund Jae Yu* Barry & Lisa Zimmermann* Bruce Carbonari*
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Article 8 of The Rome Statute of The International Criminal Court (ICC) defines biological experiments as war crimes. The US, however, is not a state party to the international treaty, and cannot be held accountable for its war crimes.
“The Russian Defence Ministry continues to study materials on the implementation of military biological programs of the United States and its NATO allies on the territory of Ukraine.
We have already mentioned Robert Pope, director of the Cooperative Threat Reduction Programme and author of the idea of the Central Depository of Highly Dangerous Microorganisms in Kiev.
In his statement of April 10, 2022, Pope said that “…there is no reason to claim that research related to the development of biological weapons is taking place in Ukraine…”. He previously claimed that “…the Americans did not find biological weapons when they first started working with Ukraine, and they still haven’t. In addition, Ukraine lacks the infrastructure to develop and produce biological weapons…”.
I would like to recall that the term “biological weapons” includes biological formulations that contain pathogenic micro-organisms and toxins, as well as the means of delivery and use of said formulations.
While the priority for Ukrainian healthcare is socially significant diseases such as HIV, poliomyelitis, measles and hepatitis, US customers are interested in a completely different nomenclature: cholera, tularemia, plague and hantaviruses.
As a result of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine, facts of work with the specified pathogens, which are potential agents of biological weapons, have been revealed. At the same time, it was noted that Ukraine had sent a request to the manufacturing company regarding the possibility of equipping the Bayraktar drones with aerosol equipment.
In addition on March 9, three unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with 30-litre containers and equipment for spraying formulations were detected by Russian reconnaissance units in Kherson region. At the end of April, 10 more were found near Kakhovka.
All this information calls into question the statements of American experts.
We have previously provided a scheme for US coordination of biological laboratories and research institutes in Ukraine. Its preliminary analysis suggests that Ukraine is essentially a testing ground for the development of biological weapons components and the testing of new samples of pharmaceuticals.
The Russian Ministry of Defence was able to clarify the said scheme.
It should be noted that the ideologues of US military-biological activities in Ukraine are the leaders of the Democratic Party.
Thus, through the US executive branch, a legislative framework for funding military biomedical research directly from the federal budget was formed. Funds were raised under state guarantees from NGOs controlled by the Democratic Party leadership, including the investment funds of the Clintons, Rockefellers, Soros and Biden.
The scheme involves major pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, Merck and the US military-affiliated company Gilead. U.S. experts are working to test new medicines that circumvent international safety standards. As a result, Western companies are seriously reducing the cost of research programmes and gaining a significant competitive advantage.
The involvement of controlled nongovernmental and biotechnological organisations, and the increase in their revenues, allows the leaders of the Democratic Party to generate additional campaign finance and hide its distribution.
In addition to US pharmaceutical companies and Pentagon contractors, Ukrainian state agencies are involved in military bioweapons activities, whose main tasks are to conceal illegal activities, conduct field and clinical trials and provide the necessary biomaterial.
Thus, the US Department of Defence, using a virtually internationally uncontrolled test site and the high-tech facilities of multinational companies, has greatly expanded its research capabilities, not only in the field of biological weapons, but also in gaining knowledge about antibiotic resistance and the antibodies to specific diseases in populations in specific regions.
It should be noted that not only the US, but also a number of its NATO allies are implementing their military-biological projects in Ukraine.
The German government has decided to launch a national biosafety programme independent of Washington, D.C., starting in 2013. Twelve countries, including Ukraine, are involved in the Programme.
On the German side, the programme involves the Institute for Armed Forces Microbiology (Munich), the Robert Koch Institute (Berlin), the Loeffler Institute (Greifswald) and the Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine (Hamburg).
New documents reveal that between 2016 and 2019 alone, three and a half thousand blood serum samples of citizens living in 25 regions of Ukraine were taken by military epidemiologists from the Bundeswehr Microbiology Institute.
The involvement of institutions subordinate to the Bundeswehr confirms the military orientation of biological research carried out in Ukrainian laboratories and raises questions about the goals pursued by the German armed forces in collecting biomaterials of Ukrainian citizens.
The documents obtained also show the involvement of Poland in Ukrainian biolaboratories. The participation of the Polish Institute of Veterinary Medicine in research aimed at assessing the epidemiological threats and spread of the rabies virus in Ukraine has been confirmed. Characteristically, the research in question was carried out jointly with the US-based Battelle Institute, a key contractor for the Pentagon.
In addition, Polish funding for the Lvov Medical University, which includes a member of US military biology projects, the Institute of Epidemiology and Hygiene, has been documented. The organisation has been running a retraining programme for specialists with experience of working with dual-use materials and technologies since 2002.
The special military operation by Russian troops succeeded in obtaining additional information about bio-incidents in Ukraine.
For example, materials indicating the intentional use of a multidrug-resistant tuberculosis pathogen in 2020 to infect the population of the Slavyanoserbsky district of the LPR were examined.
The flyers, made in the form of counterfeit currency notes, were infected with the tuberculosis agent and distributed to minors in Stepovoe village. The organisers of this crime took into account the behaviour of children, who have a habit of “putting everything in their mouths” and taking food with unwashed hands.
The results of bacteriological studies have confirmed the resistance of the isolated bacteria to first- and second-line anti-TB drugs, meaning that the disease caused by them is much more difficult to treat and the cost of treatment is much higher.
According to the conclusion of the Lugansk Republican Sanitary and Epidemiological Station, “…the contamination of the notes was most likely carried out artificially, as the material contains extremely dangerous strains of the pathogen in concentrations capable of ensuring infection and development of the tuberculosis process…”.
In his conclusion, the chief doctor of the Lugansk Republican TB Dispensary also notes that “…there are all signs of deliberate, man-made contamination of the flyers with highly pathogenic biomaterial…”.
We previously reported on trials of potentially dangerous biological drugs on one of the least protected categories of people – patients of the Kharkov Regional Clinical Psychiatric Hospital No 3.
We have received new information revealing details of the Pentagon’s inhuman experiments on Ukrainian citizens in Psychiatric Hospital No 1 (Streleche village, Kharkov region). The main category of subjects was a group of male patients aged 40-60 years with a high stage of physical exhaustion.
In order to conceal their US affiliation, the biological research experts travelled via third countries. Here is a photograph of Florida native Linda Oporto, who was directly involved in these works.
In January 2022, the foreign nationals conducting the experiments were evacuated in an emergency and the equipment and drugs they were using were taken to western Ukraine.
Russian Defence Ministry specialists have carried out work directly in two biolaboratories in Mariupol.
Evidence of emergency destruction of documents confirming work with the US military establishment was obtained. A preliminary analysis of extant documentation indicates the use of Mariupol as a regional centre for cholera pathogen collection and certification. The selected strains were sent to the Public Health Centre in Kiev, which is responsible for the onward shipment of biomaterials to the United States. These activities have been carried out since 2014, as evidenced by the transfer of strains.
An act of destruction of the pathogen collection dated February 25, 2022, according to which cholera, tularemia and anthrax pathogens were handled there, was found in the sanitary and epidemiological laboratory.
Part of the collection of the veterinary laboratory was not destroyed in a hurry. In order to ensure safety and secure storage, 124 strains were exported by Russian specialists and their study was organised.
The presence in the collection of pathogens that are uncharacteristic of veterinary medicine, such as typhoid, paratyphoid fever and gas gangrene, is a cause for concern. This could indicate the laboratory’s misuse and involvement in a military biological programme.
We will continue to examine the full volume of material received from the Mariupol biolaboratories and will inform you about the results.
The Russian Ministry of Defence has information that provocations are being prepared to accuse the Russian Armed Forces of using weapons of mass destruction, followed by a “Syrian scenario” investigation to fabricate the necessary evidence and assign blame.
The high likelihood of such provocations is confirmed by requests from the Kiev administration for personal skin and respiratory protection equipment that provides protection against toxic chemicals and biological contaminating agents. The supply to Ukraine of organophosphorus poisoning antidotes raises concerns. In 2022 alone, more than 220,000 ampoules of atropine, as well as preparations for special treatment and disinfection, were delivered from the USA at the request of the Ukrainian Ministry of Health.
Thus, the information obtained confirms that the United States is implementing an offensive military-biological programme in Ukraine to study the possibility of forming controlled epidemics in specific territories.
The special military operation of the Russian Armed Forces has crossed the US military-biological expansion in Ukraine and stopped criminal experiments on civilians.” – RUSSIA MOD
Yeah, everything from any government has to be taken with a pinch of salt and all that, but when things easily corroborate with what we previously discovered, we need to pay attention. I can’t argue anything against the new data yet, but we can cross-reference a lot of it, so, rather than a bombshell, this is more like cementing the foundation and filling in some gaps.
She originated all our revelations and public debate and this is her first lengthy interview lately! Thank her and be a part of the solution by spreading this!
US fired back at Russia with very symmetrical accusations. Many are correct. That doesn’t let either of the parts off the hook, both are dirty and guilty, both are a reflection of each other, like commies and nazis, libtards and trumptards, Pepsi and Coke, all eventually owned by some Blackrock.
Dilyana Gaytandzhieva is a Bulgarian investigative journalist, Middle East correspondent and founder of Arms Watch. Over the last two years she has published a series of revealing reports on weapons supplies to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. Her current work is focused on documenting war crimes and illicit arms exports to war zones around the world.
Attention: for expired/deleted links, learn to use the Wayback Machine from the Internet Archive, their apps and plugins are great.
The US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of Biological Weapons. Hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. Bio warfare scientists using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These US bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $ 2.1 billion military program– Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in former Soviet Union countries such as Georgia and Ukraine, the Middle East, South East Asia and Africa.
Georgia as a testing ground
The Lugar Center is the Pentagon bio laboratory in Georgia. It is located just 17 km from the US Vaziani military airbase in the capital Tbilisi. Tasked with the military program are biologists from the US Army Medical Research Unit-Georgia (USAMRU-G) along with private contractors. The Bio-safety Level 3 Laboratory is accessible only to US citizens with security clearance. They are accorded diplomatic immunity under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.
The Lugar Center, Republic of GeorgiaThe US Army has been deployed to Vaziani Military Air Base, 17 km from the Pentagon bio-laboratory at The Lugar Center.The USA-Georgia agreement accords diplomatic status to the US military and civilian personnel (including diplomatic vehicles), working on the Pentagon program in Georgia.
Information obtained from the US federal contracts registry clarifies some of the military activities at The Lugar Center – among them research on bio-agents (anthrax, tularemia) and viral diseases (e.g. Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever), and the collection of biological samples for future experiments.
Pentagon contractors produce bio agents under diplomatic cover
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has outsourced much of the work under the military program to private companies, which are not held accountable to Congress, and which can operate more freely and move around the rule of law. US civilian personnel performing work at The Lugar Center have also been given diplomatic immunity, although they are not diplomats. Hence, private companies can perform work, under diplomatic cover, for the US government without being under the direct control of the host state – in this case the Republic of Georgia. This practice is often used by the CIA to provide cover for its agents. Three private American companies work at the US bio-laboratory in Tbilisi – CH2M Hill, Battelle and Metabiota. In addition to the Pentagon, these private contractors perform research for the CIA and various other government agencies.
CH2M Hill has been awarded $341.5 million DTRA contracts under the Pentagon’s program for bio-laboratories in Georgia, Uganda, Tanzania, Iraq, Afghanistan, South East Asia. Half of this sum ($161.1 million), being allocated to The Lugar Center, under the Georgian contract. According to CH2M Hill, the US Company has secured biological agents and employed former bio warfare scientists at The Lugar Center. These are scientists who are working for another American company involved in the military program in Georgia – Battelle Memorial Institute.
Battelle as a $59 million subcontractor at Lugar Center has extensive experience in research on bio-agents, as the company has already worked on the US Bio-weapons Program under 11 previous contracts with the US Army (1952-1966).Source: US Army Activities in the US, Biological Warfare Programs, vol. II, 1977, p. 82
As opposed to this Al Jazeera dude, we’re not working for corporations or governments and there’s no government that can put up with our research. Dilyana is anti-Russian, I am against any large group of people that’s not a music festival audience or a tree-planting brigade, they’re all dumb and only harmonic vibrations can redeem them.
The CIA-Battelle Project Clear Vision
Project Clear Vision (1997 and 2000), a joint investigation by the CIA and the Battelle Memorial Institute, under a contract awarded by the Agency, reconstructed and tested a Soviet-era anthrax bomblet in order to test its dissemination characteristics. The project’s stated goal was to assess bio-agents dissemination characteristics of bomblets. The clandestine CIA-Battelle operation was omitted from the US Biological Weapons Convention declarations submitted to the UN.
Top Secret Experiments
Battelle has operated a Top Secret Bio laboratory (National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center – NBACC) at Fort Detrick, Maryland under a US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract for the last decade. The company has been awarded a $344.4 million federal contract (2006 – 2016) and another $17.3 million contract (2015 -2026) by DHS.
Besides the military experiments at the Lugar Center in Georgia, Battelle has already produced bioterrorism agents at the Biosafety Level 4 NBACC Top Secret Laboratory at Fort Detrick in the US. A NBACC presentation lists 16 research priorities for the lab. Amongst them to characterize classical, emerging and genetically engineered pathogens for their BTA (biological threat agent) potential; assess the nature of nontraditional, novel and non-endemic induction of disease from potential BTA and to expand aerosol-challenge testing capacity for non-human primates.
Scientists engineer pathogens at the NBACC lab. Photo credit: NBACC
The US Company Metabiota Inc. has been awarded $18.4 million federal contracts under the Pentagon’s DTRA program in Georgia and Ukraine for scientific and technical consulting services. Metabiota services include global field-based biological threat research, pathogen discovery, outbreak response and clinical trials. Metabiota Inc. had been contracted by the Pentagon to perform work for DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa and was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone – one of the countries at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak.
Metabiota worked on a Pentagon’s project at the epicenter of the Ebola crisis, where three US biolabs are situated.
A July 17, 2014 report drafted by the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium, accused Metabiota Inc. of failing to abide by an existing agreement on how to report test results and for bypassing the Sierra Leonean scientists working there. The report also raised the possibility that Metabiota was culturing blood cells at the lab, something the report said was dangerous, as well as misdiagnosing healthy patients. All of those allegations were denied by Metabiota.
2011,The Lugar Center, Andrew C. Weber (on the right) – US Assistant Secretary of Defense (2009-2014), US DoD Deputy Coordinator for Ebola Response (2014-2015), is currently a Metabiota ( the US contractor) employee.
[Keep these guys in mind for later! – S.m.]
Military Experiments on biting insects
Entomological warfare is a type of biological warfare that uses insects to transmit diseases. The Pentagon has allegedly performed such entomological tests in Georgia and Russia. In 2014 The Lugar Center was equipped with an insect facility and launched a project “Raising Awareness about Barcoding of Sand Flies in Georgia and Caucasus”. The project covered a larger geographic area outside of Georgia – Caucasus. In 2014-2015 Phlebotomine sand fly species were collected under another project “Surveillance Work on Acute Febrile Illness” and all (female) sand flies were tested to determine their infectivity rate. A third project, also including sand flies collection, studied the characteristics their salivary glands.
A biting fly in a bathroom in Tbilisi (photo 1), flies in Georgia (photo 2, 3)
As a result Tbilisi has been infested with biting flies since 2015. These biting insects live indoors, in bathrooms, all year long, which was not the typical behaviour of these species in Georgia previously (normally the Phlebotomine fly season in Georgia is exceptionally short – from June to September). Local people complain of being bitten by these newly appeared flies while naked in their bathrooms. They also have a strong resistance to cold and can survive even in the sub-zero temperatures in the mountains.
Biting Flies in Dagestan, Russia
Since the start of the Pentagon project in 2014 flies similar to those in Georgia have appeared in neighboring Dagestan (Russia). According to local people, they bite and cause rashes. Their breeding habitats are house drains.
Flies in Georgia (on the left). The same species in Dagestan (on the right)
Flies from the Phlebotomine family carry dangerous parasites in their saliva which they transmit through a bite to humans. The disease, which these flies carry, is of high interest to the Pentagon. In 2003 during the US invasion of Iraq American soldiers were severely bitten by sand flies and contracted Leishmoniasis. The disease is native to Iraq and Afghanistan and if left untreated the acute form of Leishmoniasis can be fatal.
A 1967 US Army report “Arthropods of medical importance in Asia and the European USSR” lists all local insects, their distribution and the diseases that they carry. Biting flies, which live in drains, are also listed in the document. Their natural habitats, though, are the Philippines, not Georgia or Russia.
Source: “Arthropods of medical importance in Asia and the European USSR”, US Army report, 1967
Operation Whitecoat: Infected flies tested to bite humans
Sand fly
In 1970 and 1972, Sand Fly Fever tests were performed on humans according to a declassified US Army report – US Army Activities in the US, Biological Warfare Programs, 1977, vol. II, p. 203. During operation Whitecoat volunteers were exposed to bites by infected sand flies. Operation Whitecoat was a bio-defense medical research program carried out by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland between 1954 and 1973.
Despite the official termination of the US bio-weapons program, in 1982 USAMRIID performed an experiment if sand flies and mosquitoes could be vectors of Rift Valley Virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Eastern Equine Encephalitis – viruses, which the US Army researched for their potential as bio-weapons.
Killer Insects
A. Aegupti
The Pentagon has a long history in using insects as vectors for diseases. According to a partially declassified 1981 US Army report, American bio warfare scientists carried out a number of experiments on insects. These operations were part of the US Entomological Warfare under the Program for Biological Weapons of the US.
The Pentagon: How to kill 625,000 people for just $0.29 cost per death
A US Army report in 1981 compared two scenarios – 16 simultaneous attacks on a city by A. Aegupti mosquitoes, infected with Yellow Fever, and Tularemia aerosol attack, and assesses their effectiveness in cost and casualties.
Operation Big Itch: Field tests were performed to determine coverage patterns and survivability of the tropical rat flea Xenopsylla cheopis for use as a disease vector in biological warfare.
Operation Big Buzz: 1 million A. Aeugupti mosquitoes were produced, 1/3 were placed in munitions and dropped from aircraft, or dispersed on the ground. The mosquitoes survived the airdrop and actively sought out human blood.
Source: Evaluation of Entomological Warfare as a potential Danger to the US and European NATO nations, US Army, March 1981 Report
Operation May Day: Aedes Aegupti mosquitoes were dispersed through ground based methods in Georgia, USA, during a US Army operation codenamed May Day.
Parts of the 1981 US Army report such as the “Mass production of Aedes Aegypti” have not been declassified, potentially meaning that the project is still ongoing.
Aedes Aegypti, also known as yellow fever mosquito, have been widely used in US military operations. The same species of mosquitoes are alleged to be the vectors of dengue, chikungunya and the Zika virus, which causes genetic malformations in newborns.
The US Army Chemical Research and Development Command, Biological Weapons Branch, studied outdoor mosquito biting activity in a number of field tests at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, in 1960. Virgin female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which had been starved, were tested upon troops out in the open air.
Military Experiments with Tropical Mosquitoes and Ticks in Georgia
Such species of mosquitoes and fleas (studied in the past under the US Entomological Warfare Program) have also been collected in Georgia and tested at The Lugar Center.
Under the DTRA project “Virus and Other Arboviruses in Georgia” in 2014 the never-before-seen tropical mosquito Aedes albopictus was detected for the first time and after decades (60 years) the existence of Aedes Aegypti mosquito was confirmed in West Georgia.
Aedes Albopictus is a vector of many viral pathogens, Yellow fever virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Zika.
These tropical mosquitoes Aedes Albopictus having never been seen before in Georgia, have also been detected in neighboring Russia (Krasnodar) and Turkey, according to data provided by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Their spread is unusual for this part of the world.
Aedes Aegupti Mosquitoes have been distributed only in Georgia, Southern Russia and Northern Turkey. They were detected for the first time in 2014 after the start of the Pentagon program at The Lugar Center.
Under another DTRA project “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” (2013-2016) 6,148 ground ticks were collected ; 5,871 were collected off the cattle and 1,310 fleas and 731 ticks were caught. In 2016 a further 21 590 ticks were collected and studied at The Lugar Center.
In 2007 despite the anthrax outbreak the Georgian government terminated the compulsory vaccination for 7 years, 2013 saw NATO start human trials on a new anthrax vaccine in Georgia.
Pentagon Research on Russian Anthrax
Anthrax is one of the bio agents weaponized by the US Army in the past. Despite the Pentagon’s claims that its program is only defensive, there are facts to the contrary. In 2016 at The Lugar Center American scientists carried out research on the “Genome Sequence of the Soviet/Russian Bacillus anthracis Vaccine Strain 55-VNIIVViM”, which was funded by the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program in Tbilisi, and administered by Metabiota (the US contractor under the Pentagon program in Georgia).
34 people infected with Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) in Georgia
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is caused by infection through a tick-borne virus (Nairovirus). The disease was first characterized in Crimea in 1944 and given the name Crimean hemorrhagic fever. It was then later recognized in 1969 as the cause of illness in Congo, thus resulting in the current name of the disease. In 2014 34 people became infected (among which a 4-year old child) with CCHF. 3 of which died. The same year Pentagon biologists studied the virus in Georgia under the DTRA project “Epidemiology of febrile illnesses caused by Dengue viruses and other Arboviruses in Georgia”. The project included tests on patients with fever symptoms and the collection of ticks, as possible vectors of CCHV for laboratory analysis.
34 people became infected with CCHF, 3 of them died in Georgia. Source: NCDC-Georgia
The cause of the CCHF outbreak in Georgia is still unknown. According to the local Veterinary Department report, only one tick from all of the collected species from the infected villages tested positive for the disease. Despite the claims of the local authorities that the virus was transmitted to humans from animals, all animal blood samples were negative too. The lack of infected ticks and animals is inexplicable given the sharp increase of CCHF human cases in 2014, meaning that the outbreak was not natural and the virus was spread intentionally.
In 2016 another 21 590 ticks were collected for DNA database for future studies at The Lugar Center under the Pentagon project “Assessing the Seroprevalence and Genetic Diversity of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus (CCHFV) and Hantaviruses in Georgia”.
Symptoms of CCHF
Military bio-lab blamed for deadly CCHF outbreak in Afghanistan
237 cases of Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF) have also been reported across Afghanistan, 41 of which were fatal as of December 2017. According to Afghanistan’s Ministry of Health most of the cases have been registered in the capital Kabul where 71 cases have been reported with 13 fatalities, and in the province of Herat near the border with Iran (67 cases).
Afghanistan is one of 25 countries across the world with Pentagon bio-laboratories on their territory. The project in Afghanistan is part of the US bio-defense program – Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), which is funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). The DTRA contractors, working at The Lugar Center in Georgia, CH2M Hill and Battelle have also been contracted for the program in Afghanistan. CH2M Hill has been awarded a $10.4 million contract (2013-2017). The Pentagon contractors in Afghanistan and Georgia are the same and so are the diseases which are spreading among the local population in both countries.
Why the Pentagon collects and studies bats
Bats are allegedly the reservoir hosts to the Ebola Virus , Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and other deadly diseases. However, the precise ways these viruses are transmitted to humans are currently unknown. Numerous studies have been performed under the DTRA Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in a search for deadly pathogens of military importance in bats.
Bats have been blamed for the deadly Ebola outbreak in Africa (2014-2016). However, no conclusive evidence of exactly how the virus “jumped” to humans has ever been provided, which raises suspicions of intentional and not natural infection.
This comes from the set of evidences Russia made public prior to convoking a UN meeting on March 11 2022
Engineering deadly viruses is legal in the US
MERS-CoV is thought to originate from bats and spread directly to humans and/or camels. However, like Ebola, the precise ways the virus spreads are unknown. 1,980 cases with 699 deaths were reported in 15 countries across the world (as of June 2017) caused by MERS-CoV.
3 to 4 out of every 10 patients reported with MERS have died (Source: WHO)
MERS-CoV is one of the viruses that have been engineered by the US and studied by the Pentagon, as well as Influenza and SARS. Confirmation of this practice is Obama’s 2014 temporary ban on government funding for such “dual-use” research. The moratorium was lifted in 2017 and experiments have continued. Enhanced Potential Pandemic Pathogens (PPPs) experiments are legal in the US. Such experiments aim to increase the transmissibility and/or virulence of pathogens.
Tularemia as Bioweapon
F. Tularensis is a highly infectious bacterium and has the potential to be weaponized for use through aerosol attacks.
Tularemia, also known as Rabbit Fever, is classified as a bioterrorism agent and was developed in the past as such by the US. However, the Pentagon’s research on tularemia continues, as well as on possible vectors of the bacteria such as ticks and rodents which cause the disease. The DTRA has launched a number of projects on Tularemia along with other especially dangerous pathogens in Georgia. Especially Dangerous Pathogens (EDPs), or select agents, represent a major concern for the public health globally. These highly pathogenic agents have the potential to be weaponized with proof of their military importance seen through the following Pentagon projects: Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia inGeorgia (2013-2016) (60 000 vectors were collected for strain isolates and genome research); Epidemiology of Human Tularemia in Georgia and Human Disease Epidemiology and Surveillance of Especially Dangerous Pathogens in Georgia (study of select agents among patients with undifferentiated fever and hemorrhagic fever/septic shock).
Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source: 1981 US Army Report
Pentagon bio-laboratories spread diseases in Ukraine
The DoD Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) has funded 11 bio-laboratories in the former Soviet Union Country Ukraine, bordering on Russia.
The US military program is sensitive information
Ukraine has no control over the military bio-laboratories on its own territory. According to the 2005 Agreement between the US DoD and the Ministry of Health of Ukraine the Ukrainian government is prohibited from public disclosure of sensitive information about the US program and Ukraine is obliged to transfer to the US Department of Defense (DoD) dangerous pathogens for biological research. The Pentagon has been granted access to certain state secrets of Ukraine in connection with the projects under their agreement.
Biowarfare scientists under diplomatic cover
Among the set of bilateral agreements between the US and Ukraine is the establishment of the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine (STCU) – an International organization funded mainly by the US government which has been accorded diplomatic status. The STCU officially supports projects of scientists previously involved in the Soviet biological weapons program. Over the past 20 years the STCU has invested over $285 million in funding and managing some 1,850 projects of scientists who previously worked on the development of weapons of mass destruction.
The US personnel in Ukraine work under diplomatic cover.
364 Ukrainians died from Swine Flu
One of the Pentagon laboratories is located in Kharkiv, where in January 2016 at least 20 Ukrainian soldiers died from Flu-like virus in just two days with 200 more being hospitalized. The Ukrainian government did not report on the dead Ukrainian soldiers in Kharkiv. As of March 2016 364 deaths have been reported across Ukraine (81.3 % caused by Swine Flu A (H1N1) pdm09 – the same strain which caused the world pandemic in 2009).
According to DPR intelligence information the US bio lab in Kharkiv leaked the deadly virus.
Police investigate infection with incurable disease
A highly suspicious Hepatitis A infection spread rapidly in just few months across South East Ukraine where most of the Pentagon biolabs are located.
29 cases of Hepatitis A were reported in Kharkiv in November 2017. The virus was isolated in contaminated drinking water. One of the Pentagon bio-labs is located in Kharkiv which was blamed for the deadly Flu outbreak a year ago which claimed the lives of 364 Ukrainians.
Ukraine and Russia hit by new highly virulent cholera infection
A new highly virulent variant of the cholera agent Vibrio cholera, with a high genetic similarity to the strains reported in Ukraine, hit Moscow in 2014. According to a 2014 Russian Research Anti-Plaque Institute genetic study the cholera strain isolated in Moscow was similar to the bacteria which caused the epidemic in neighboring Ukraine.
Southern Research Institute, one of the US contractors working at the bio-laboratories in Ukraine, has projects on Cholera, as well as on Influenza and Zika – all pathogens of military importance to the Pentagon.
Along with Southern Research Institute, two other private American companies operate military bio-labs in Ukraine – Black&Veatch and Metabiota.
Black & Veatch Special Project Corp. was awarded $198.7 million DTRA contracts to build and operate bio-laboratories in Ukraine (under two 5-year contracts in 2008 and 2012 totaling $128.5 million), as well as in Germany, Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Thailand, Ethiopia, Vietnam and Armenia.
Metabiota has been awarded a $18.4 million federal contract under the program in Georgia and Ukraine. This US company was also contracted to perform work for the DTRA before and during the Ebola crisis in West Africa, the company was awarded $3.1 million (2012-2015) for work in Sierra Leone .
Southern Research Institute has been a prime subcontractor under the DTRA program in Ukraine since 2008. The company was also a prime Pentagon contractor in the past under the US Biological Weapons Program for research and development of bio-agents with 16 contracts between 1951 and 1962.
Southern Research Institute was also a subcontractor on a Pentagon program for anthrax research in 2001. The prime contractor being Advanced Biosystems, whose president at that time was Ken Alibek (a former Soviet microbiologist and biological warfare expert from Kazakhstan who defected to the US in 1992).
Ken Alibek was the First Deputy Director of Biopreparat, where he oversaw a program for biological weapon facilities and was the Soviet Union’s main expert on anthrax. After his defection to the US, he was engaged on Pentagon research projects.
$250 000 for lobbying Jeff Sessions for “research for US intelligence”
Southern Research Institute lobbied the US Congress and US Department of State hard for “issues related to research and development for US intelligence” and “defense related research and development”. The lobbying activities coincided with the start of the Pentagon projects on bio-labs in Ukraine and other former Soviet states.
The company paid $ 250 000 for lobbying the then Senator Jeff Sessions in 2008-2009 (currently the US Attorney General appointed by Donald Trump), when the institute was awarded a number of federal contracts.
US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, US Senator from Alabama (1997-2017)
Police investigate Botulism toxin poisoning in Ukraine
115 Botulism cases, with 12 deaths, were reported in Ukraine in 2016. In 2017 the Ukrainian Ministry of Health confirmed a further 90 new cases, with 8 deaths, of botulinum toxin poisoning (one of the most poisonous biological substances known). According to the local health authorities, the cause of the outbreak was food poisoning into which police launched an investigation. The Pentagon biolaboratories in Ukraine were among the prime suspects, as botulinum toxin is one of the bioterrorism agents which have already been produced at a Pentagon bioweapons facility in the US. (see below)
The Ukrainian government stopped supplying antitoxin in 2014 and no botulism vaccines in stock were available during the 2016-2017 outbreak.
Botulism is a rare and extremely dangerous illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
1 gm of the toxin can kill as many as 1 million people
Botulinum neurotoxin poses a major bio-weapon threat because of its extreme potency, ease of production and transport. It causes muscles paralyses, respiratory failure and ultimately death if not treated immediately. A single gram of crystalline toxin, evenly dispersed and inhaled can kill more than one million people. It could be disseminated via aerosol, or by contamination of water and/ or food supplies.
The Pentagon produces live Viruses, Bacteria & Toxins
Botulinum Toxin was tested as a bio-weapon by the US Army in the past, as well as Anthrax, Brucella and Tularemia. Although the US bio-weapons program was officially terminated in 1969 documents show that the military experiments have never ended. Presently the Pentagon produces and tests live bio- agents at the same military facility as it did in the past – Dugway Proving Ground.
The US Army produces and tests bio-agents at a special military facility located at Dugway Proving Ground (West Desert Test Center, Utah), as proven in a 2012 US Army Report. The facility is overseen by the Army Test and Evaluation Command.
The Life Sciences Division (LSD) at Dugway Proving Ground is tasked with the production of bio-agents. According to the Army report, scientists from this division produce and test aerosolized bio-agents at Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF).
Lothar Saloman Life Sciences Test Facility (LSTF) where bio-terrorism agents are produced and aerosolized. Photo Credit: Dugway Proving GroundBiological Agents produced by the US Army at Dugway Proving Ground, Utah, USA Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test Center
The Life Sciences Division consists of an Aerosol Technology branch and a Microbiology Branch. The Aerosol Technology Branch aerosolizes biological agents and simulants. The Microbiology branch produces toxins, bacteria, viruses and agent-like organisms which are used in chamber and field testing.
The fermentation laboratories at the Life Sciences Test Facility grow bacteria in fermentors ranging from a small 2 L to a large 1500 L system. The fermentors are tailored specifically to the requirements of the microorganism that is being engineered – pH, temperature, light, pressure, and nutrient concentrations that give the microorganism optimal growth rates.
A large 1500 L fermentatorA post-production laboratory dries and mills test materials. Photos credit: Dugway Proving Ground
After the bio-agents are produced, the scientists challenge them at containment aerosol chambers.
Technicians disseminate live biological agents for identification sensitivity tests (photos: Dugway Proving Ground)
Aerosol experiments with Botulinum Neurotoxin and Anthrax
Documents prove that the US Army produces, possesses and tests aerosols of the most lethal toxin in the world – Botulinum Neurotoxin. In 2014 the Department of the Army purchased 100 mg of Botulinum Toxin from Metabiologics for tests at Dugway Proving Ground.
The experiments date back to 2007 when an unspecified quantity of the toxin was procured to the Department of the Army by the same company – Metabiologics. According to the 2012 West Desert Test Center Report, the military facility performs tests with Botulinum Neurotoxin Aerosol, as well as with aerosolized Anthrax, Yersinia pestis, and Venezuelan Equine Encephalitis Virus (VEE).
Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test Center
Outdoor field test programs at Dugway Proving Ground
US Army documents and photos show that the Pentagon has developed various dissemination methods for bioterrorism attacks including by explosives.
Source: Capabilities Report 2012, West Desert Test CenterDissemination of contaminants for biological/chemical tests. Photo credit: Dugway Proving GroundDissemination of simulants by explosives. Photo Credit: Dugway Proving GroundLiquid DisseminationPowder DisseminationDissemination on the test grid. Photos Credit: Dugway Proving GroundAerosol Sprayer
The US Army report lists numerous dissemination techniques including by bio-aerosol sprayers. Such sprayers called Micronair disseminators have already been developed by the US Army and tested at Dugway Proving Ground. According to the documents, they can be vehicle-mounted, or worn as a backpack, with a pump system which can be fitted to the unit to increase the accuracy of the release. Micronair sprayers can release 50 to 500 mL of bio-liquid simulant per minute from 12 L tanks.
The US stole bacteria from Saddam Hussein’s bio weapons factory
Bacillus thuringiensis
Bacillus thuringiensis is an insect pathogen that is widely used as a bio-pesticide. B. thuringiensis (BT) Al Hakam was collected in Iraq by the UN Special Commission led by the US in 2003. It is named after Al Hakam – Iraq’s bio-weapons production facility. Apart from Pentagon field tests, this bacterium is also used in the US for the production of GM corn, resistant to pests. Photos posted by the CIA prove that the bacteria was collected by the US in Iraq. According to the CIA, the vials containing bio-pesticide, were recovered from an Al Hakam scientist’s home.
CIA: A total of 97 vials-including those with labels consistent with the al Hakam cover stories of single-cell protein and bio-pesticides, as well as strains that could be used to produce BW agents were recovered from a scientist’s residence in Iraq in 2003. Photo credit: CIA
Information from the US federal contracts registry shows that the Pentagon performs tests using the bacteria stolen from Saddam Hussein’s bio-weapons factory in Iraq.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) federal project for laboratory analysis and field tests with bacteria. Source: govtribe.com
The tests are performed at Kirtland Air Force Base (Kirtland is the home of the Air Force Materiel Command’s Nuclear Weapons Center). Here weapons are being tested, meaning that the field tests with biological simulants (bacteria) also fall into this group.
The DTRA contractor on this project – Lovelace Biomedical and Environmental Research Institute (LBERI), operates an Animal Bio-safety 3 Level (ABSL-3) laboratory which has Select Agent status. The facility is designed to conduct bioaerosol studies. The company has been awarded a 5-year contract for field tests with biological simulants at Kirtland Air Force Base.
Photo Credit: Kirtland Air Force Base
Field tests with Biological Simulants (bacteria)
What the Pentagon is now doing is exactly what it did in the past, meaning that its bio-weapons program was never terminated. The US Army performed 27 field tests with such biological simulants, involving the public domain from 1949 to 1968, when President Nixon officially announced the end of the program.
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), which runs the US military program at the Lugar Center in Georgia, is alleged to have already performed field tests with an unknown substance in Chechnya, Russia. In the spring of 2017 local citizens reported on a drone disseminating white powder close to the Russian border with Georgia. Neither the Georgian border police, nor the US personnel operating on the Georgia-Russia border, commented on this information.
$9.2 million US military project on Russia-Georgia border
DTRA has full access to the Russia-Georgia border, granted under a military program called “Georgia Land Border Security Project”. The activities, related to the project have been outsourced to a private American company – Parsons Government Services International. DTRA has previously contracted Parsons for similar border security projects in Lebanon, Jordan, Libya and Syria. Parsons have been awarded a $9.2 million contract under the Pentagon border security project on the Russia-Georgia border.
Local citizens in Chechnya noticed a UAV sprayer near the Russian border with Georgia in 2017.
US Defense Agency tests GM Insects to transmit GM Viruses
The Pentagon has invested at least $65 million in gene editing. The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has awarded 7 research teams to develop tools for genome engineering in insects, rodents and bacteria under DARPA’s Safe Gene program, using a novel CRISPR-Cas9 technology.
Under another military program –Insect Allies, GM insects are engineered to transfer modified genes to plants. The $10.3 million DARPA project includes both gene editing in insects and in the viruses that they transmit. Ecological Niche-preference Engineering is a third ongoing military program for genome engineering in insects. The Pentagon’s stated objective is to engineer GM organisms so that they can resist certain temperatures, change their habitat and food sources.
Besides gene editing in insects and in the viruses they transmit, the Pentagon wants to engineer humans as well. DARPA Advanced Tools for Mammalian Genome Engineering Project seeks to create a biological platform inside the human body, using it to deliver new genetic information, and thus altering humans at the DNA level.
DARPA wants to insert an additional 47th artificial chromosome into human cells. This chromosome will deliver new genes that will be used for engineering the human body. SynPloid Biotek LLC has been awarded two contracts under the program totaling $1.1 million (2015-2016 – $ 100,600 for the first phase of the research; 2015-2017 – $ 999,300 for work which is not specified in the federal contracts registry. The company has only two employees and no previous record on bio-research.
Top Secret Research on Synthetic Viruses
Between 2008 and 2014, the United States invested approximately $820 million in synthetic biology research, Defense being a major contributor. Most of the military projects on synthetic biology are classified, among them are a number of classified studies by the secretive JASON group of US military advisors – e.g. Emerging Viruses and Genome Editing for the Pentagon, and Synthetic Viruses for the National Counterterrorism Center.
JASON is an independent scientific advisory group that provides consulting services to the U.S. government on matters of defense science and technology. It was established in 1960 and most of their resulting JASON reports are classified. For administrative purposes, the JASON’s projects are run by the MITRE Corporation, which has contracts with the Defense Department, CIA and the FBI. Since 2014 MITRE has been awarded some $27.4 million in contracts with the DoD.
Although the JASON Reports are classified, another US Air Force study titled Biotechnology: Genetically Engineered Pathogens, sheds some light on what the secretive JASON group has researched – 5 groups of genetically engineered pathogens that can be used as bio-weapons. These are binary biological weapons (a lethal combination of two viruses), host swapping diseases (animal viruses that “jump” to humans, like the Ebola virus), stealth viruses, and designer diseases. Designer diseases can be engineered to target a certain ethnic group, meaning that they can be used as ethnic bio-weapons.
Ethnic Bioweapons
Ethnic biological weapon (biogenetic weapon) is a theoretical weapon that aims to primarily harm people of specific ethnicities, or genotypes. Although officially the research and development of ethnic bio-weapons have never been publicly confirmed, documents show that the US collects biological material from certain ethnic groups – Russians and Chinese.
The US Air Force has been specifically collecting Russian RNA and synovial tissue samples, raising fears in Moscow of a covert US ethnic bio-weapons program.
Source: fbo.gov
Apart from Russians, the US has been collecting biological material from both healthy and cancer patients in China. The National Cancer Institute has collected biological samples from 300 subjects from Linxian, Zhengzhou, and Chengdu in China. While another federal project, titled Serum Metabolic biomarkers discovery study of Esophageal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in China, includes analysis of 349 serum samples which have been collected from Chinese patients.
The US National Cancer Institute has been collecting biological material from patients of the Chinese Cancer Hospital in Beijing.
Chinese biological material has been collected under a series of federal projects including saliva and cancer tissue. Among them, Genotyping DNA Samples from Lymphoma cases and from controls (healthy patients), Breast cancer tissue blocks from breast cancer patients, Saliva samples of 50 families who have 3 or more cases of UGI cancer, Genotype 50 SNP’S for DNA samples from the Cancer Hospital, Beijing, Genotypes from 3000 cases of gastric cancer and 3000 controls (healthy patients) in Beijing.
Tobacco Vaccines: How the Pentagon helped tobacco companies to profit from Ebola
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has invested $100 million in vaccines production from tobacco plants. The companies, involved in the project, are owned by the biggest American tobacco companies – Mediacago Inc. is co-owned by Philip Morris, and Kentucky BioProcessing is a subsidiary of Reynolds American which is owned by British American Tobacco. Currently they are producing Flu and Ebola vaccines from tobacco plants.
The $100 million program Blue Angel was launched as a response to the H1N1 pandemic in 2009. Medicago being awarded $21 million to produce 10, 000 million doses of an influenza vaccine within one month.
Blue Angel program manager Dr. John Julias explains: “Although there are multiple plant species and other organisms being explored as alternative protein production platforms, the US Government has continued to make an investment in tobacco-based manufacturing.”
The plant-based vaccine production method works by isolating a specific antigen protein that triggers a human immune response from the targeted virus. A gene from the protein is transferred to bacteria, which is used to infect plants. The plants then start producing the protein that will be used for vaccinations (photos: DARPA)
It is not clear why the Pentagon chose to invest in vaccines produced from tobacco plants amongst all other plant species, which they explored. Medicago, co-owned by Philip Morris, paid $495,000 for lobbying the Department of Defense, the Congress and The Department of Health and Human Services for “funding to advance technology to support public health preparedness applications”. The Pentagon funded tobacco companies to develop new technology and to profit from vaccines. – http://dilyana.bg/
Bulgarian journalist confronts US official over secret biolabs
On 16 January 2018, a Bulgarian investigative journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva wrote a detailed article about the US bio-weapons research that spans across the world in 25 different countries. Gaytandzhieva wrote in her article that the US Army regularly produces deadly viruses, bacteria and toxins in direct violation of the UN Convention on the prohibition of biological weapons, and that hundreds of thousands of unwitting people are systematically exposed to dangerous pathogens and other incurable diseases. She added that bio-warfare scientists are using diplomatic cover test man-made viruses at Pentagon bio-laboratories in 25 countries across the world. These bio-laboratories are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) under a $2.1 billion military program called Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP), and are located in countries such as Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Jordan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, etc. Luckily, the Balkans seems to be clear.
Gaytandzhieva recently traveled to Brussels and attended the European Parliament in order to confront Robert Kadlec, Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health, regarding the number of classified bio-weapons research labs scattered through Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Kadlec categorically denied the existence of an American bio-weapon program as well as that information surrounding the labs in question were classified. Gaytandzhieva attempted to continue her follow up but was silenced by Hilde Vautmans, the EU official sitting next to Kadlec, who stated “This is not an investigation” to applause from the audience and an embrace between herself and Kadlec. Gaytandzhieva didn’t stop there, however, following Kadlec to the elevator and continuing to ask him questions regarding the bio-weapons program which Kadlec refused to answer. Security staff then refused to let Gaytandzhieva on the elevator.
Here’s the full transcript of the exchange between Gaytandzhieva and Kadlec:
Gaytandzhieva: Why has the Pentagon been operating military bio-laboratories in 25 countries, bordering on the US rivals Russia, China and Iran, and why has the number of deadly outbreaks, in all those countries, increased dramatically since the start of the military program of the United States in these countries? Kadlec: I will say unequivocally and undeniably, the US does not have a military biological weapons program. Period. End of statement. Number two [interrupts Gaytandzhieva], we have been working, and I do know from the Department of Defense, they have been working with partners in parts the World, to ensure that those laboratories, and we trained them to do the diagnostic tests on these diseases, to ensure that they can manage them and also safely secure those facilities, so they’re not accessible by terrorists, or by criminals, who would do ill with them. Gaytandzhieva: Why are all these projects classified information? All these bio-laboratories of the Pentagon in 25 countries across the world? Why are they classified information? Kadlec: They’re not classified, they’re openly avaliable to anyone who wants to look at them. Gaytandzhieva: No, I tried it. No, this is not true. They are classified information. Vautmans: Ok, ok, I think I will not give you more time. We will try to answer your questions, but that’s not the place here. Case closed, thank you very much [kisses with Kadlec].
Gaytandzhieva then followed Kadlec to the elevator and continued to ask him questions regarding the bio-weapons program.
Gaytandzhieva: Just one more question? Kadlec: No more questions. Gaytandzhieva: What is the need of military biolaboratories of the United States in 25 countries across the world?
She attempted to enter the elevator, but was forcibly stopped.
Gaytandzhieva: This is public area, sorry, I can use the elevator. Security man: Sorry not this one, it’s full. Gaytandzhieva: I can use the elevator. Security man: No more questions then [trying to prevent cameraman]. Gaytandzhieva: Why not? Why is the Pentagon investing 65 million dolars in gene editing? The gene editing is the part of this program.
Elevator gates closed.
Later, Gaytandzhieva posted the video on her social media pages, simply commenting: “How a journalist gets expelled from the European Parliament when asking the Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Health questions about the Pentagon bio-laboratories around Russia, China and Iran.
Although unable to retrieve any answers from Kadlec, her article is already an impressive collection of information revealing a network of bio-weapons research facilities as well as mysterious outbreaks in their vicinities.
This is not the first time that Gaytandzhieva is exposing the US secret military programs. Last summer, she published a bombshell report which found that an Azerbaijan state airline company was regularly transporting tons of cheap Bulgarian and East European weaponry to Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Turkey, under diplomatic cover as part of the CIA covert program. These weapons were found inside underground terrorist warehouses belonging to Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria designated as a terrorist organization by the UN. The US modus operandi was the same: using bases in the satellite countries, abuse of diplomatic channels, and dirty politics directed against Russia, Iran and Syria.
Leaked e-mails between the Lugar Center, the Pentagon biolaboratory in Tbilisi, the US Embassy to Georgia and the Georgian Ministry of Health reveal new information about the $161 million secretive US Government biological research program in this former Soviet country.
The data allegedly originating from the Ministry of Health of Georgia has been published anonymously on Twitter and on a forum for database leaks – Raidforums. Among the documents there are internal memos, official letters and detailed information about US government projects at the Lugar Center, funding and foreign business trips.
Arms Watch volunteers have analyzed these documents and discovered very interesting facts about the Center’s recent activities.
The Pentagon has planned to turn Georgia into its largest biological research center overseas, combining its military resources with the resources of the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Georgia.
Furthermore, the number of US projects and grants have increased as well as the number of US scientists deployed to the Lugar Center. The Pentagon-funded facility is planned to temporarily accommodate 16 CDC specialists from Atlanta, for whom Georgia will build a separate BSL-2 laboratory, administrative building and a campus near the Lugar Center. In addition, Georgia will become a regional CDC hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, internal documents reveal.
The Lugar Center is a $161 million Pentagon-funded biolaboratory in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi (photo: Dilyana Gaytandzhieva)
The Lugar Center already sparked controversy about possible dual-use research in 2018 when leaked documents revealed that US diplomats in Georgia were involved in the trafficking of frozen human blood and pathogens for a secret military program.
Pentagon research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center
US military scientists have been deployed to Georgia for research on bioterrorism agents at the Lugar Center, according to the new data-leak. These bio-agents have the potential to be aerosolized and used as bioweapons. Among them anthrax, tularemia, Brucella, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, Hantavirus, Y. pestis (causing the disease plague).
The US military biological research projects in Georgia have been funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). According to internal data, American and Georgian scientists are currently working on the following DTRA projects in the Lugar Center:
Project 1059:Zoonotic Infections with Fever and Skin Injuries in Georgia
The project includes isolation of new orthopoxviruses in humans, rodents, domestic and wild animals in Georgia, and collection of rodents (as a natural reservoir for this virus) for their further study.
Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018 (extended to 2020)
Funding: $702,343
Project 1060:Characterization of the Georgian National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) Strain Repository by New Generation Sequencing
Description: characterization and genome research on 100 strains from four endemic species: Y. pestis (causing the disease plague), B. anthracis (anthrax), Brucella, and F. tularensis (causing the disease tularemia).
Duration: 01/11/2015-31/10/2018
Funding: $ 518,409
Project 1439:Molecular Virological Research in Georgia
Description and objectives:
Identify and characterize Hantavirus and Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) strains by molecular methods;
Characterize and study genetic diversity of Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantavirus strains isolated from rodents and ectoparasites;
Serological examination of febrile patients with Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome;
Collection of rodents and ectoparasites (ticks, fleas);
Duration: 16/08/2017-15/08/2021
Funding: $612,614
Project 1497:Molecular Epidemiology and Ecology of Yersinia Species in Georgia and Azerbaijan
Description: 1) Ecological research on rodents in Kerb on the Georgian-Azerbaijani border 2) Isolation of different strains of Yersinia; 3) Molecular screening of collected rodent and flea samples. 4) A comparative analysis of the genomes of Yersinia strains obtained during the fieldwork; 5) Spatial analysis of the distribution of Yersinia strains.
Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018 (extended to 2022)
Funding: $134,090.00DTRA Projects in Georgia1 of 8
Project 1742:Risks of bat-borne zoonotic diseases in Western Asia
Duration: 24/10/2018-23 /10/2019
Funding: $71,500
In 2017 the US Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) launched a $6.5 million project on bats and coronaviruses in Western Asia (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Jordan) with the Lugar Center being the local laboratory for this genetic research. The duration of the program is 5 years and has been implemented by the non-profit US organisation Eco Health Alliance.
The project’s objectives are: 1. Capture and non-lethally sample 5,000 bats in 5-year period (2017-2022) 2. Collect 20,000 samples (i.e. oral, rectal swabs and/or feces, and blood) and screen for coronaviruses using consensus PCR at regional labs in Georgia and Jordan. According to the project presentation, Eco Health Alliance already sampled 270 bats of 9 species in three Western Asian countries: 90 individual bats in Turkey (Aug 2018), Georgia (Sept 2018), and Jordan (Oct 2018).Video Player00:0003:02
EcoHealth Alliance and Georgian scientists sampling a bat for coronavirus research in 2018 (Facebook, Keti Sidamonidze)
Coincidentally, the same Pentagon contractor tasked with the US DoD bat-research program – Eco Health Alliance, USA, also collected bats and isolated coronaviruses along with Chinese scientists at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. EcoHealth Alliance received a $3.7 million grant from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to collect and study coronaviruses in bats in China from 2014 to 2019.
Project 1911:Ricketsia and Coxelia infection surveillance in Georgia and Azerbaijan (US federal grant HDTRA1-19-1-0042 awarded to NCDC-Georgia)
Duration: 23/09/2019 – 22/09/2022
Funding: $945,000
Despite the official claims of Georgia and USA that the Lugar Center is under the full control of the government of this Caucasus country internal documents show otherwise. Not only has the Pentagon funded biological research projects but it has also paid all the expenses for security and maintenance including utility bills – water, gas, electricity, and cleaning. Tasked with the operational and scientific support to the Lugar Center is USAMRU-Georgia, a special unit deployed to Georgia by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR). WRAIR has paid: $524,625 (2016-2018), $650,000 (2017-2019) and $1,062,400 (2017-2021) for utility bills, and a further $158,050 (2016-2017) and $322,000 (2018-2021) for security guards.
The Pentagon has also awarded a private US contractor, Technology Management Company (TMC) an $8 million contract for science services to support USAMRU-Georgia in the Lugar Center (2016-2021).WRAIR Projects at the Lugar Center1 of 5
Tularemia research on soldiers
The Pentagon unit USAMRU-Georgia has conducted extensive research on tularemia involving Georgian soldiers, scientific papers reveal.
Tularemia is a rare infectious disease that typically attacks the skin, eyes, lymph nodes and lungs. Tularemia, also called rabbit fever or deer fly fever, is caused by the bacterium Francisella tularensis. It is categorized as a category A bioterrorism agent. Tularemia was weaponized for mass aerosol dissemination by the US Army in the past, according to a recently declassified military report.
Tularemia is one of the bio-weapons that the US Army developed in the past. Source: 1981 US Army Report
900 volunteers (soldiers and civilians) were recruited for the DTRA project GG-19 “Epidemiology and Ecology of Tularemia in Georgia” from 2014 to 2017. Blood samples were collected from those volunteers and tested for tularemia.
According to the study, 10 soldiers (2%) of the 500 solders tested had antibodies for F. tularensis. The seropositive soldiers were men, the majority of whom were between 30 and 39 years of age. Seven cases had current residences in known endemic areas (i.e. Kakheti, Samtskhe-Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli, Shida Kartli, and Tbilisi). Three were from areas without previously known F. tularensis transmission (i.e. Imereti).
Of the 783 residents approached to participate in this study, 35 (5.0%) volunteers had antibodies to F. tularensis.
While the civilian volunteers were all residents of two areas with naturally occurring foci of tularemia in Georgia, the military personnel were soldiers visiting Georgia’s military hospital. The study does not provide any explanation as to why soldiers were enrolled in this project nor how exactly they contracted the disease in the army.Project GG-19: Tularemia in Georgia1 of 8
Furthermore, Georgia has asked the US Embassy for assistance for the construction of a second military hospital in the country, according to leaked correspondence between local health officials and the US Embassy to Tbilisi.
Below is Google translation in English of this correspondence:
CDC regional hub
The US Government has launched a parallel civil program in Georgia implemented by the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Leaked e-mails between the US Embassy to Tbilisi and Georgian health officials reveal that CDC has planned to set up a regional office for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia. The US Embassy and CDC have requested additional office space for 16 employees. Currently the CDC staff are working inside the Lugar Center.CDC regional hub for Eastern Europe and Central Asia in Georgia1 of 4
Interestingly, the Georgian health officials do not ask about any further information or clarification as to what this new foreign hub is going to do in their own country. Instead, Georgia’s Ministry of Health has planned the construction of a new BSL-2 laboratory, conference hall and campus near the Lugar Center with a loan from the European Investment Bank, according to a letter to the finance minister of Georgia leaked on Raidforums.
Arms Watch could not independently verify the authenticity of this letter as we did not find it in the leaked files. We have further analyzed the ministry’s internal data and discovered the following CDC projects in Georgia:
Project 1320: Antimicrobial Resistance Project
Duration: 01/09/2016 -29/09/2020
Funding: $153,492.40
Project 1440:Introducing or Expanding the Use of Influenza Vaccine Outside the United States
Duration: 30/09/2016 – 29/09/2019
Funding: $750,000
Project 1441:Influenza Surveillance Outside the United States
Duration: 30/09 / 16-29 / 09/21
Funding: $250,000
Project 1446: Strengthening New Generation Sequencing Capacities for Hepatitis C Surveillance in Georgia
Duration: 01/07/2017-30 /06/2018
Funding: $22,000
Project 1447:Samples collection under the Hepatitis C Elimination Program in Georgia – Bio-Bank
Objective: The aim of the project is to store samples collected under the Hepatitis C program for future scientific work
20,000 plasma/serum samples
6,000 serum samples from the 2015 National Seroprevalence Survey of Hepatitis C and B
1,000 blood samples from blood banks
500 blood samples from patients with terminal liver disease
Duration: 01/07/2017-30/06/2018
Project 1456:Strengthening the micronutrient deficit monitoring system in Georgia
Duration: 01/09/2017 – 31/08/2018
Funding: $92,875
Project 1457:Genetic peculiarities of hepatitis C virus in Georgia and its role in the Georgian Hepatitis C elimination program
Objective: Evaluate morbidity and mortality associated with Hepatitis C virus
Duration: 01/09/2017-31/08/2018
Funding: $127,125
Project 1532:Strengthening, detection, response and prevention of diarrhea outbreaks in Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/09/2020
Funding: $40,000
Project 1533:Strengthening Immunization and Vaccination Control System
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $67,220.00
Project 1534: Respiratory Disease Surveillance
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $80,000.00
Project 1535:Enterovirus surveillance Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29/ 09/2020
Funding: $45,000
Project 1536:National Laboratory Quality Control Program in Georgia
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020
Funding: $56,140
Project 1537:South Caucasus Field Epidemiology and Laboratory Training Program
Duration: 30/09/2017 -29 /09/2020
Funding: $150,000
Project 1538: Fever of unknown etiology caused by arboviruses in the Black Sea region – clinical specimens will be shipped to the CDC Laboratory for analyses
Duration: 30/09/2017 – 29/09/2020
Funding: $100,360CDC Projects in Georgia1 of 15
In conclusion, the United States has been consistently developing its laboratory facilities in the Caucasus. Why has the US Government spent billions of dollars on such biolaboratories and projects abroad instead on the health of its own citizens?Scientists with diplomatic immunity1 of 6
Furthermore, why have US scientists working at the Lugar Center been given diplomatic status and immunity to research deadly pathogens and insects in Georgia? Diplomatic immunity is a principle of international law by which foreign government officials are not subject to the jurisdiction of local courts and other authorities for their activities. Hence, US scientists could even perform illegal experiments in Georgia without being prosecuted as they have diplomatic immunity.
The Internet has generated this and sent it my way, I don’t know who to credit, but it’s a good job, no lies detected as of now.
UPDATE MARCH 10, 2022: Klaus Schwab & Hunter Biden Connected To Ukraine Bio-Labs
I was working on exposing these connections myself, but Infowars moved faster and they did great job. So I can vouch for almost every sentence there based on my own research and I will take it even further. Until then, enjoy their video:
The Gateway Pundit identified through the Wayback Machine that Rosemont Seneca provided capital (invested in) Metabiota as noted on the firm’s website back in 2014.
It is listed as “Our Team’s Investments” on the Rosemont Senaca webpage.
We also located a number of documents from the Wayback Machine (meaning they have been since deleted off the Internet) that show the Department of Defense investing in the creation of Biolabs in Ukraine with the help of firm Black & Veatch.
Here is a sample of one of the documents located. (We’ve located nearly a dozen of these documents.)
Today, Metabiota, the pioneer in epidemic risk modeling, announced it has been awarded a subcontract from Black & Veatch (B&V) to support the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s (DTRA) Cooperative Biological Engagement Program (CBEP) in Iraq under the Biological Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (BTRIC). Metabiota has also partnered with B&V on DTRA’s recently awarded Cooperative Threat Reduction Integrating Contract (CTRIC) III with an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract ceiling of $970M.
Metabiota, a pandemic tracking and response firm that has collaborated with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, was a primary financial backer of Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, an investment group led by Hunter Biden.
Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP) was a spinoff of Rosemont Capital, a venture capital firm created by Biden and John Kerry’s stepson in 2009. Biden served as a Managing Director.
<<Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings are becoming harder for the major media to suppress amid revelations coming out of an ongoing grand jury investigation and his business partner’s prison sentence in a scheme to defraud a Native American tribe of some $60 million in bonds.
Which brings us back to a topic many have forgotten if they even knew: The proximity between Hunter Biden and the origins of COVID-19.
Hunter Biden
Independent media outlet The National Pulse reported in June of last year that an investment firm led by Hunter Biden was a key financial collaborator with Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP), the firm led by Joe Biden’s son, was a lead financial backer of Metabiota, a pandemic tracking and response firm that partnered with EcoHealth Alliance and the Wuhan lab, the report said.
EcoHealth Alliance, headed by Daszak, and financed by several U.S. government agencies, partnered with Dr. Ralph Baric of the University of North Carolina and Dr. Shi Zhengli of the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct gain-of-function research on bat-borne coronaviruses in communist China prior to the initial outbreak of Covid.
The National Pulse cited financial reports which show that RSTP led Metabiota’s first round of funding, which amounted to $30 million.
“Former Managing Director and co-founder of RSTP Neil Callahan – a name that appears many times on Hunter Biden’s hard drive – also sits on Metabiota’s Board of Advisors,” the report noted.
In April 2021, Joe Biden’s USAID announced a new initiative spearheaded by EcoHealth Alliance to track emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential. Also collaborating on the taxpayer-funded venture was Metabiota.
Since 2014, Metabiota has been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “PREDICT” project, which seeks to “predict and prevent global emerging disease threats.” As part of this effort, researchers from Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborated on a study relating to bat infectious diseases in China.
Daszak is also central figure in the potential origins of Covid. His EcoHealth Alliance funneled taxpayer dollars from Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to collaborate on bat coronavirus research in Wuhan.
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden’s business partner Devon Archer on Monday was sentenced to one year and one day in federal prison by Manhattan Judge Ronnie Abrams.
“There’s no dispute about the harm caused to real people,” Abrams said, noting that the defrauded tribe, the Oglala Sioux, is one of the poorest in the nation. Archer will also have to pay more than $15 million in forfeiture by himself and more than $43 million in restitution with his co-defendants in the case.
Rosemont Seneca was one of a handful of companies listed in a May 2019 grand jury subpoena that ordered JP Morgan Chase to provide records of transactions between Hunter Biden’s various ventures and the Bank of China for the previous five years.
The subpoena also asked for similar “records, documents and accounts” related to James Biden, Joe Biden’s brother, and Hunter’s former business partners Eric Schwerin and Archer, both founding partners at Rosemont Seneca.
Archer’s attorney, Matthew Schwartz, confirmed that his client had “cooperated completely” with the Department of Justice after the subpoena was leaked online last month by Marco Polo which is preparing a comprehensive report on the Biden family.
“The document offered the first real clues as to the specifics of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss’s probe, which was launched in late 2018 but controversially kept under wraps until weeks after the 2020 Presidential election, supposedly to avoid becoming a campaign issue,” the Daily Mail noted.>>
Update March 30, 2020: Once we pull it out you better pick up on it quickly, I told you we’re in the business of dictating future MSM headlines. But without the sugar glazing. 🙂
Knight Spirit makes a nice summary of the Metabiota – Covid connection:
Metabiota & COVID-19 origin
<<Since 2014, Metabiota has been a partner of EcoHealth Alliance as part of the “PREDICT” initiative of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID), which aims to “predict and prevent global emerging disease threats.”
As part of this endeavor, researchers from Metabiota, EcoHealth Alliance, and the Wuhan Institute of Virology collaborated on a study into bat infectious diseases in China. According to the research, “sensitive and broadly reactive RT-PCR assays were performed at Wuhan Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.”
Shi Zhengli, the Director of the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases at the Chinese Communist Party’s Wuhan Lab, is one of the researchers included in the aforementioned 2014 publication. Peter Daszak, who was recently removed from the Lancet COVID-19 panel due to many conflicts of interest as a “longtime collaborator” of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, is named as a contributor.
Daszak is also a key figure in COVID-19’s possible origins. His EcoHealth Alliance used public funds to collaborate on bat coronavirus research in Wuhan with Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
EcoHealth Alliance and Metabiota researchers have also worked together on presentations on how to “live safely with bats” and studies tying new infectious disease epidemics to wildlife trade facilities, such as “wet markets.”
“Wildlife trade can facilitate zoonotic disease transmission and represents a threat to human health and economies in Asia, highlighted by the 2003 SARS coronavirus outbreak, where a Chinese wildlife market facilitated pathogen transmission,” the 2016 paper notes.
On a 2014 study on henipavirus spillover, a 2014 study on Ebola monitoring, a 2015 study on herpes, and a 2015 study on viral diversity, Metabiota researchers were named with EcoHealth Alliance staff.
Aside from its ties to EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota has also been criticized for “bungling” America’s Ebola response.>>
BUT METABIOTA IS INVOLVED IN MANY PLACES AND MANY BITHREATS, SUCH AS:
ABOUT PREDICT
PREDICT is enabling global surveillance for viruses that may spillover from animal hosts to people by building capacities to detect and discover viruses of pandemic potential. The project is part of USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats program and is led by the UC Davis One Health Institute. The core partners are USAID, EcoHealth Alliance, Metabiota, Wildlife Conservation Society, and Smithsonian Institution. Scientists work in 30 countries in Africa and Asia testing for five viral families—coronaviruses (e.g. SARS/MERS), filoviruses (e.g. Ebola), paramyxoviruses (e.g. Nipah / Hendra), influenza viruses (e.g. H1N1, H5N1, H7N9) and flaviviruses (e.g. Zika)—in wildlife, livestock, and humans, to understand the risk of spillover. As part of this effort, lab scientists around the world are trained to perform viral testing—a vital skill in case an outbreak should emerge. Field researchers are trained to safely handle and sample animals by capture and release. – SOURCE
Researchers from Metabiota have also been listed alongside EcoHealth Alliance personnel on a 2014 study on henipavirus [aka Nipah – keep this in mind – S.m.] spillover, 2014 study on Ebola monitoring, 2015 study focusing on herpes, and 2015 study on viral diversity.
“An American company that bills itself as a pioneer in tracking emerging epidemics made a series of costly mistakes during the 2014 Ebola outbreak that swept across West Africa — with employees feuding with fellow responders, contributing to misdiagnosed Ebola cases and repeatedly misreading the trajectory of the virus,” an Associated Press (AP) investigation into the company found.
The company reportedly made the “already chaotic situation worse,” prompting World Health Organization officials to criticize the company.
Emails obtained by AP and interviews with aid workers on the ground show that some of the company’s actions made an already chaotic situation worse.
WHO outbreak expert Dr. Eric Bertherat wrote to colleagues in a July 17, 2014, email about misdiagnoses and “total confusion” at the Sierra Leone government lab Metabiota shared with Tulane University in the city of Kenema. He said there was “no tracking of the samples” and “absolutely no control on what is being done.”
“This is a situation that WHO can no longer endorse,” he wrote.
<<A separate document detailing Ukraine’s biolab network from the BioWeapons Prevention Project outlines in greater detail the scope of pathogens the facility has conducted research with.
Among the viruses the lab studied were Ebola and “viruses of pathogencity group II by using of virology, molecular, serologica and express methods.”
Additionally, the lab provided “special training for specialists on biosafety and biosecurity issues during handling of dangerous biological pathogenic agents.”>> – National Pulse
BIOLAB’S PATHOGENS.
Look again and tell me if that virus list reminds you of anything. Hint:
This above quotes a National Defense Magazine article, which reveals the Covid narrative was already being set up in 2011, as we’ve shown in other reports too:
<<Teams are learning that local health clinics in South Asia, Africa and Southeast Asia possess deadly pathogens, not as potential weapons, but because they need samples of naturally-occurring diseases on hand to diagnose outbreaks in their human and animal populations. These samples are often kept in public repositories where the microbes could easily be stolen and released.
“We’re looking for partners in new areas around the world who have legitimate need for maintaining samples of these horrible diseases and pathogens,” Myers said, according to National Defense Magazine. “We are looking for ways to partner with them to increase their ability to keep them secure and safe, to be able to account for them so they know exactly how many strains of pathogen X or pathogen Y or pathogen Z they might have.”
The cooperative biological engagement teams are also seeking to assist the partner nations with epidemiological training to ensure scientists are effective and efficient at identifying outbreaks and alerting the proper authorities.
“Many of the countries we’re dealing with now never had any intention of being a threat to the United States,” Myers said, according to National Defense Magazine. “One of their interests in engaging with us is to become real partners with us, and we look forward to developing those relationships.”>> –
All research at a Fort Detrick laboratory that handles high-level disease-causing material, such as Ebola, is on hold indefinitely after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found the organization failed to meet biosafety standards.
No infectious pathogens, or disease-causing material, have been found outside authorized areas at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.
The CDC inspected the military research institute in June and inspectors found several areas of concern in standard operating procedures, which are in place to protect workers in biosafety level 3 and 4 laboratories, spokeswoman Caree Vander Linden confirmed in an email Friday.
The CDC sent a cease and desist order in July.
After USAMRIID received the order from the CDC, its registration with the Federal Select Agent Program, which oversees disease-causing material use and possession, was suspended. That suspension effectively halted all biological select agents and toxin research at USAMRIID, Vander Linden said in her email.
The Federal Select Agent Program does not comment on whether a program such as USAMRIID is registered and cannot comment on action taken to enforce regulations, Kathryn Harben, a spokeswoman for the CDC, wrote in an email.
“As situations warrant, [Federal Select Agent Program] will take whatever appropriate action is necessary to resolve any departures from regulatory compliance in order to help ensure the safety and security of work with select agents and toxins,” Harben said in the email.
The suspension was due to multiple causes, including failure to follow local procedures and a lack of periodic recertification training for workers in the biocontainment laboratories, according to Vander Linden. The wastewater decontamination system also failed to meet standards set by the Federal Select Agent Program, Vander Linden said in a follow-up email.
“To maximize the safety of our employees, there are multiple layers of protective equipment and validated processes,” she said.
Vander Linden could not say when the laboratory would be able to continue research.
“USAMRIID will return to fully operational status upon meeting benchmark requirements for biosafety,” she said in an email. “We will resume operations when the Army and the CDC are satisfied that USAMRIID can safely and consistently meet all standards.”
USAMRIID has been working on modified biosafety level 3 procedures and a new decontamination system since flooding in May 2018. This “increased the operational complexity of bio-containment laboratory research activities within the Institute,” she said.
At the time of the cease and desist order, USAMRIID scientists were working with agents known to cause tularemia, also called deer fly or rabbit fever, the plague and Venezuelan equine encephalitis, all of which were worked on in a biosafety level 3 laboratory. Researchers were also working with the Ebola virus in a biosafety level 4 lab, Vander Linden said.
Of the pathogens, Ebola, bacteria Yersinia pestis (plague), and bacterium Francisella tularensis (tularemia) are on the list of the Health and Human Services select agents and toxins. The three are considered Tier 1 agents, which pose a severe public health and safety threat.
Venezuelan equine encephalitis also falls under the Federal Select Agent Program, according to the Code of Federal Regulations.
The military research institute is looking at each of its contracts to see what will be affected by the shutdown. USARMIID work outside the lab is not expected to be affected, including on Ebola, Vander Linden said.
“We are coordinating closely with the CDC to ensure that critical, ongoing studies within bio-containment laboratories are completed under appropriate oversight and that research animals will continue to be cared for in accordance with all regulations,” she said in an email. “Although much of USAMRIID’s research is currently on hold, the Institute will continue its critical clinical diagnostic mission and will still be able to provide medical and subject matter expertise as needed to support the response to an infectious disease threat or other contingency.”
According to the Code of Federal Regulations, which also lists required training, records and biosafety plans, Federal Select Agents Program registration can be suspended to protect public health and safety. It is not clear if this is why the USAMRIID registration was suspended.
The code also gives the Department of Health and Human Services, under which the CDC falls, the right to inspect any site and records, without prior notifications. Vander Linden said in the email that the CDC inspected USAMRIID several times over the past year, both unannounced and on a regularly scheduled basis.
USAMRIID will work to meet requirements set by the Army and the CDC and have its suspension lifted, Vander Linden said.
“While the Institute’s research mission is critical, the safety of the workforce and community is paramount,” she said. “USAMRIID is taking the opportunity to correct deficiencies, build upon strengths, and create a stronger and safer foundation for the future.”
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Sometimes my memes are 3D. And you can own them. Or send them to someone. You can even eat some of them. CLICK HERE
If you’re familiar with our reports, George Church is no stranger to you either. He’s a founder figure for the Human Genome Project, CRISPR and The BRAIN Initiative. But he’s totally not getting the deserved attention, seeing that he’s just turned our world upside down. Not by himself, of course.
Meet George Church
Remember when Fauci and Big Tech joined efforts to keep us in the dark in regards to the mRNA impact on our genetics and DNA?
We’ve shown that there’s an entire new field of science that does just that: argues what Fauci said by using RNA to reprogram DNA. YouTube ad Facebook censored this.
Let’s see how are they going to argue this gentle giant of the science world and all his dark entanglements:
Professor at Harvard & MIT, co-author of 580 papers, 143 patent publications & the book “Regenesis”; developed methods used for the first genome sequence (1994) & million-fold cost reductions since (via fluor-NGS & nanopores), plus barcoding, DNA assembly from chips, genome editing, writing & recoding; co-initiated BRAIN Initiative (2011) & Genome Projects (GP-Read-1984, GP-Write-2016, PGP-2005:world’s open-access personal precision medicine datasets); machine learning for protein engineering, tissue reprogramming, organoids, xeno-transplantation, in situ 3D DNA, RNA, protein imaging.
George Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Director of PersonalGenomes.org, which provides the world’s only open-access information on human Genomic, Environmental & Trait data (GET). His 1984 Harvard PhD included the first methods for direct genome sequencing, molecular multiplexing & barcoding. These led to the first genome sequence (pathogen, Helicobacter pylori) in 1994 . His innovations have contributed to nearly all “next generation” DNA sequencing methods and companies (CGI-BGI, Life, Illumina, Nanopore). This plus his lab’s work on chip-DNA-synthesis, gene editing and stem cell engineering resulted in founding additional application-based companies spanning fields of medical diagnostics ( Knome/PierianDx, Alacris, AbVitro/Juno, Genos, Veritas Genetics ) & synthetic biology / therapeutics ( Joule, Gen9, Editas, Egenesis, enEvolv, WarpDrive ). He has also pioneered new privacy, biosafety, ELSI, environmental & biosecurity policies. He is director of an IARPA BRAIN Project and NIH Center for Excellence in Genomic Science. His honors include election to NAS & NAE & Franklin Bower Laureate for Achievement in Science. He has coauthored 537 papers, 156 patent publications & one book (Regenesis).
He was part of a team of six[80] who, in a 2012 scientific commentary, proposed a Brain Activity Map, later named BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies).[81] They outlined specific experimental techniques that might be used to achieve what they termed a “functional connectome“, as well as new technologies that will have to be developed in the course of the project,[80]including wireless, minimally invasive methods to detect and manipulate neuronal activity, either utilizing microelectronics or synthetic biology. In one such proposed method, enzymatically produced DNA would serve as a “ticker tape record” of neuronal activity. – Wikipedia
Wyss Institute Will Lead IARPA-Funded Brain Mapping Consortium
January 26, 2016
(BOSTON) — The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University today announced a cross-institutional consortium to map the brain’s neural circuits with unprecedented fidelity. The consortium is made possible by a $21 million contract from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and aims to discover the brain’s learning rules and synaptic ‘circuit design’, further helping to advance neurally-derived machine learning algorithms.
The consortium will leverage the Wyss Institute’s FISSEQ (fluorescent in-situ sequencing) method to push forward neuronal connectomics, the science of identifying the neuronal cells that work together to bring about specific brain functions. FISSEQ was developed in 2014 by the Wyss Core Faculty member George Church and colleagues and, unlike traditional sequencing technologies, it provides a method to pinpoint the precise locations of specific RNA molecules in intact tissue. The consortium will harness this FISSEQ capability to accurately trace the complete set of neuronal cells and their connecting processes in intact brain tissue over long distances, which is currently difficult to do with other methods.
Awarded a competitive IARPA MICrONS contract, the consortium will further the overall goals of President Obama’s BRAIN initiative, which aims to improve the understanding of the human mind and uncover new ways to treat neuropathological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, autism and epilepsy. The consortium’s work will fundamentally innovate the technological framework used to decipher the principal circuits neurons use to communicate and fulfill specific brain functions. The learnings can be applied to enhance artificial intelligence in different areas of machine learning such as fraud detection, pattern and image recognition, and self-driving car decision making.
See how the Wyss-developed FISSEQ technology is able to capture the location of individual RNA molecules within cells, which will allow the reconstruction of neuronal networks in the 3-dimensional space of intact brain tissue. Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University
“Historically, the mapping of neuronal paths and circuits in the brain has required brain tissue to be sectioned and visualized by electron microscopy. Complete neurons and circuits are then reconstructed by aligning the individual electron microsope images, this process is costly and inaccurate due to use of only one color (grey),” said Church, who is the Principal Investigator for the IARPA MICrONs consortium. “We are taking an entirely new approach to neuronal connectomics_immensely colorful barcodes_that should overcome this obstacle; and by integrating molecular and physiological information we are looking to render a high-definition map of neuronal circuits dedicated first to specific sensations, and in the future to behaviors and cognitive tasks.”
Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT.
To map neural connections, the consortium will genetically engineer mice so that each neuron is barcoded throughout its entire structure with a unique RNA sequence, a technique called BOINC (Barcoding of Individual Neuronal Connections) developed by Anthony Zador at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Thus a complete map representing the precise location, shape and connections of all neurons can be generated.
The key to visualizing this complex map will be FISSEQ, which is able to sequence the total complement of barcodes and pinpoint their exact locations using a super-resolution microscope. Importantly, since FISSEQ analysis can be applied to intact brain tissue, the error-prone brain-sectioning procedure that is part of common mapping studies can be avoided and long neuronal processes can be more accurately traced in larger numbers and at a faster pace.
In addition, the scientists will provide the barcoded mice with a sensory stimulus, such as a flash of light, to highlight and glean the circuits corresponding to that stimulus within the much more complex neuronal map. An improved understanding of how neuronal circuits are composed and how they function over longer distances will ultimately allow the team to build new models for machine learning.
The multi-disciplinary consortium spans 6 institutions. In addition to Church, the Wyss Institute’s effort will be led by Samuel Inverso, Ph.D., who is a Staff Software Engineer and Co-investigator of the project. Complementing the Wyss team, are co-Principal Investigators Anthony Zador, Ph.D., Alexei Koulakov, Ph.D., and Jay Lee, Ph.D., at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Adam Marblestone, Ph.D., and Liam Paninski, Ph.D. are co-Investigator at MIT and co-Principal Investigator at Columbia University, respectively. The Harvard-led consortium is partnering with another MICrONS team led by Tai Sing Lee, Ph.D. of Carnegie Mellon University as Principal investigator under a separate multi-million contract, with Sandra Kuhlman, Ph.D. of Carnegie Mellon University and Alan Yuille, Ph.D. of Johns Hopkins University as co-Principal investigators, to develop computational models of the neural circuits and a new generation of machine learning algorithms by studying the behaviors of a large population of neurons in behaving animals, as well as the circuitry of the these neurons revealed by the innovative methods developed by the consortium.
“It is very exciting to see how technology developed at the Wyss Institute is now becoming instrumental in showing how specific brain functions are wired into the neuronal architecture. The methodology implemented by this research can change the trajectory of brain mapping world wide,” said Wyss Institute Founding Director Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., who is also the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. – WYSS Institute
IARPA is CIA’s DARPA. DARPA IS RAN BY PENTAGON AND IARPA BY CIA. IARPA IS EVEN MORE SECRETIVE, DARING AND SOCIOPATHIC.
Machine Intelligence from Cortical Networks (MICrONS)
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA)
Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. (BRAIN)
Full Rosetta brains in situ A. Activity (MICrONS = Ca imaging) (Alternative=Tickertape, see figure to right) B. Behavior (MICrONS & Alt = traditional video) C. Connectome (MICrONS & Alt = BOINC via Cas9-barcode) D. Developmental Lineage (via Cas9-barcode) E. Expression (RNA & Protein via FISSEQ)
Flagship Pioneering’s Scientists Invent a New Category of Genome Engineering Technology: Gene Writing
Tessera Therapeutics emerges from three years of stealth operations to pioneer Gene Writing™ as a new genome engineering technology and category of genetic medicine
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., July 7, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Flagship Pioneering today announced the unveiling of Tessera Therapeutics, Inc. a new company with the mission of curing disease by writing in the code of life. Tessera is pioneering Gene Writing™, a new biotechnology that writes therapeutic messages into the genome to treat diseases at their source.
Tessera’s Gene Writing platform is a potentially revolutionary breakthrough for genetic medicine that addresses key limitations of gene therapy and gene editing. Gene Writing technology can alter the genome by efficiently inserting genes and exons (parts of genes), introducing small insertions and deletions, or changing single or multiple DNA base pairs. The technology could enable cures for diseases that arise from errors in the genome, including monogenic disorders. It could also allow precise gene regulation in other diseases such as neurodegenerative diseases, autoimmune disorders, and metabolic diseases.
“While profound advancements in genetic medicine over the last two decades had therapeutic promise for many previously untreatable diseases, the intrinsic properties of existing gene therapy and editing have significant shortcomings that limit their benefits to patients,” says Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering and Chairman of Tessera Therapeutics. “Our scientists have invented a new technology, called Gene Writing, that has the ability to write therapeutic messages into the genomes of somatic cells. We created Tessera to pioneer its applications for medicine. However, the breakthrough is broad and could be applied to many different genomes from humans to plants to microorganisms.”
A New Era of Genetic Medicine
Geoffrey von Maltzahn, Ph.D., an MIT-trained biological engineer; Jacob Rubens, Ph.D., an MIT-trained synthetic biologist; and other scientists at Flagship Labs, the enterprise’s innovation foundry, co-founded Tessera in 2018 to create a platform that could design, make, and launch Gene Writing medicines. A General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, von Maltzahn has co-founded numerous biotechnology companies, including Sana Biotechnology, Indigo Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences, Seres Therapeutics, and Axcella Health.
“DNA codes for life. But sometimes our DNA is written improperly, driving an enormous variety of diseases,” says von Maltzahn, Tessera’s Chief Executive Officer. “We started Tessera Therapeutics with a simple question: ‘What if Nature evolved a better solution than CRISPR for inserting curative therapeutic messages into the genome?’ It turns out that engineered and synthetic mobile genetic elements offer the potential to go beyond the limitations of gene editing technologies and allow Gene Writing. Our outstanding team of scientists is focused on bringing the vast promise of this new technology category to patients.”
Mobile genetic elements, the inspiration for Gene Writing, are evolution’s greatest genomic architect. The first mobile genetic element was discovered by Barbara McClintock, who won the 1983 Nobel Prize for revealing the mobile nature of genes. Mobile genetic elements code for the machinery to move or copy themselves into a new location in the genome, and they have been selected over billions of years to autonomously and efficiently “write” their DNA into new genomic sites. Today, mobile genetic elements are among the most abundant and ubiquitous genes in nature.
Over the past two years, Tessera has been mining genomes to discover novel mobile genetic elements and engineering them to create Gene Writing technology.
Tessera’s Gene Writers write therapeutic messages into the genome using RNA or DNA templates. RNA-based Gene Writing uses an RNA template and Gene Writer protein to either write a new gene into the genome or guide the rewriting of a pre-existing genomic sequence to make a small substitution, insertion, or deletion. DNA-based Gene Writing uses a DNA template to write a new gene into the genome.
By harnessing the biology of mobile genetic elements, Gene Writing holds the potential to overcome the limitations of current genetic medicine approaches by:
Efficiently writing small and large alterations to the genome of somatic cells with minimal reliance upon host DNA repair pathways, unlike nuclease-based gene editing technologies.
Permanently adding new DNA to dividing cells, unlike AAV-based gene therapy technologies.
Writing new DNA sequences into the genome by delivering only RNA.
Allowing repeated administration of treatments to patients in order to dose genetic medicines to effect, which is not possible with current gene therapies.
Tessera has licensed Flagship Pioneering’s intellectual property estate, which was begun in 2018 with seminal patent filings supporting both RNA and DNA Gene Writing technologies.
Tessera’s Scientific Advisory Board includes Luigi Naldini, David Schaffer, Andrew Scharenberg, Nancy Craig, George Church, Jonathan Weissman, and John Moran, who collectively have decades of experience in developing gene therapies and gene editing technologies, and also have commercial expertise from 4D, UniQure, Casebia, Cellectis, Magenta, and Editas. Tessera’s Board of Directors includes John Mendlein, Flagship Executive Partner and former CEO of multiple companies; Melissa Moore, Chair of Tessera’s Scientific Advisory Board, Chief Scientific Officer of Moderna, member of the National Academy of Sciences, and founding co-director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute; Geoffrey von Maltzahn; and Noubar Afeyan. The 30-person R&D team at Tessera has deep genetic medicine and startup expertise, including alumni from Editas, Intellia, Beam, Casebia, and Moderna.
About Tessera Therapeutics Tessera Therapeutics is an early-stage life sciences company pioneering Gene Writing™, a new biotechnology designed to offer scientists and doctors the ability to write and rewrite small and large therapeutic messages into the genome, thereby curing diseases at their source. Gene Writing holds the potential to become a new category in genetic medicine, building upon recent breakthroughs in gene therapy and gene editing, while eliminating important limitations in their reach, utilization and efficacy. Tessera Therapeutics was founded by Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences innovation enterprise that conceives, resources, and develops first-in-class category companies to transform human health and sustainability.
About Flagship Pioneering Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, and develops first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health and sustainability. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has applied a unique hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster more than 100 scientific ventures, resulting in over $34 billion in aggregate value. To date, Flagship is backed by more than $4.4 billion of aggregate capital commitments, of which over $1.9 billion has been deployed toward the founding and growth of its pioneering companies alongside more than $10 billion of follow-on investments from other institutions. The current Flagship ecosystem comprises 41 transformative companies, including Axcella Health (NASDAQ: AXLA), Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI), Evelo Biosciences (NASDAQ: EVLO), Foghorn Therapeutics, Indigo Ag, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ: KLDO), Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY), Sana Biotechnology, Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MCRB), and Syros Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SYRS). – Flagship Pioneering
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DNA harvesting, mRNA technologies, mind-reading and more – this was the official race start signal at the Transhumanist Olympics, all the way back in 2013
The vision for the BRAIN Initiative is to combine these areas of research into a coherent, integrated science of cells, circuits, brain and behavior.
Not often mentioned, IARPA is CIA’s DARPA, an even more secretive, dark and psychopathic agency.
How The BRAIN Initiative® workS
Given the ambitious scope of this pioneering endeavor, it was vital that planning be informed by a wide range of expertise and experience. Therefore, NIH established a high level working group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director (ACD) to help shape this new initiative.
This working group, co-chaired by Dr. Cornelia “Cori” Bargmann (The Rockefeller University) and Dr. William Newsome (Stanford University) sought broad input from the scientific community, patient advocates, and the general public. Their report, BRAIN 2025: A Scientific Vision, released in June 2014 and enthusiastically endorsed by the ACD, articulated the scientific goals of The BRAIN Initiative® and developed a multi-year scientific plan for achieving these goals, including timetables, milestones, and cost estimates.
Of course, a goal this audacious will require ideas from the best scientists and engineers across many diverse disciplines and sectors. Therefore, NIH is working in close collaboration with other government agencies, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), National Science Foundation (NSF), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA). Private partners are also committed to ensuring success through investment in The BRAIN Initiative®.
Five years ago a project such as this would have been considered impossible. Five years from now will be too late. While the goals are profoundly ambitious, the time is right to inspire a new generation of neuroscientists to undertake the most groundbreaking approach ever contemplated to understanding how the brain works, and how disease occurs. Source: NIH
Remarks by the President on the BRAIN Initiative and American Innovation
East Room 10:04 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT:
Thank you so much. (Applause.)
Thank you, everybody. Please have a seat. Well, first of all, let me thank Dr. Collins not just for the introduction but for his incredible leadership at NIH. Those of you who know Francis also know that he’s quite a gifted singer and musician. So I was asking whether he was going to be willing to sing the introduction — (laughter) — and he declined. But his leadership has been extraordinary. And I’m glad I’ve been promoted Scientist-in-Chief. (Laughter.)
Given my grades in physics, I’m not sure it’s deserving. But I hold science in proper esteem, so maybe that gives me a little credit. Today I’ve invited some of the smartest people in the country, some of the most imaginative and effective researchers in the country — some very smart people to talk about the challenge that I issued in my State of the Union address: to grow our economy, to create new jobs, to reignite a rising, thriving middle class by investing in one of our core strengths, and that’s American innovation. Ideas are what power our economy. It’s what sets us apart. It’s what America has been all about. We have been a nation of dreamers and risk-takers; people who see what nobody else sees sooner than anybody else sees it. We do innovation better than anybody else — and that makes our economy stronger.
When we invest in the best ideas before anybody else does, our businesses and our workers can make the best products and deliver the best services before anybody else. And because of that incredible dynamism, we don’t just attract the best scientists or the best entrepreneurs — we also continually invest in their success. We support labs and universities to help them learn and explore. And we fund grants to help them turn a dream into a reality. And we have a patent system to protect their inventions. And we offer loans to help them turn those inventions into successful businesses.
And the investments don’t always pay off. But when they do, they change our lives in ways that we could never have imagined. Computer chips and GPS technology, the Internet — all these things grew out of government investments in basic research. And sometimes, in fact, some of the best products and services spin off completely from unintended research that nobody expected to have certain applications.
Businesses then used that technology to create countless new jobs.
So the founders of Google got their early support from the National Science Foundation. The Apollo project that put a man on the moon also gave us eventually CAT scans. And every dollar we spent to map the human genome has returned $140 to our economy — $1 of investment, $140 in return.
Dr. Collins helped lead that genome effort, and that’s why we thought it was appropriate to have him here to announce the next great American project, and that’s what we’re calling the BRAIN Initiative.
As humans, we can identify galaxies light years away, we can study particles smaller than an atom. But we still haven’t unlocked the mystery of the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears. (Laughter.) But today, scientists possess the capability to study individual neurons and figure out the main functions of certain areas of the brain. But a human brain contains almost 100 billion neurons making trillions of connections.
So Dr. Collins says it’s like listening to the strings section and trying to figure out what the whole orchestra sounds like. So as a result, we’re still unable to cure diseases like Alzheimer’s or autism, or fully reverse the effects of a stroke. And the most powerful computer in the world isn’t nearly as intuitive as the one we’re born with. So there is this enormous mystery waiting to be unlocked, and the BRAIN Initiative will change that by giving scientists the tools they need to get a dynamic picture of the brain in action and better understand how we think and how we learn and how we remember. And that knowledge could be — will be — transformative. In the budget I will send to Congress next week, I will propose a significant investment by the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, and the National Science Foundation to help get this project off the ground.
I’m directing my bioethics commission to make sure all of the research is being done in a responsible way. And we’re also partnering with the private sector, including leading companies and foundations and research institutions, to tap the nation’s brightest minds to help us reach our goal. And of course, none of this will be easy. If it was, we would already know everything there was about how the brain works, and presumably my life would be simpler here. (Laughter.) It could explain all kinds of things that go on in Washington. (Laughter.) We could prescribe something. (Laughter.)
So it won’t be easy. But think about what we could do once we do crack this code. Imagine if no family had to feel helpless watching a loved one disappear behind the mask of Parkinson’s or struggle in the grip of epilepsy. Imagine if we could reverse traumatic brain injury or PTSD for our veterans who are coming home. Imagine if someone with a prosthetic limb can now play the piano or throw a baseball as well as anybody else, because the wiring from the brain to that prosthetic is direct and triggered by what’s already happening in the patient’s mind. What if computers could respond to our thoughts or our language barriers could come tumbling down. Or if millions of Americans were suddenly finding new jobs in these fields — jobs we haven’t even dreamt up yet — because we chose to invest in this project. That’s the future we’re imagining. That’s what we’re hoping for. That’s why the BRAIN Initiative is so absolutely important. And that’s why it’s so important that we think about basic research generally as a driver of growth and that we replace the across-the-board budget cuts that are threatening to set us back before we even get started.
A few weeks ago, the directors of some of our national laboratories said that the sequester — these arbitrary, across-the-board cuts that have gone into place — are so severe, so poorly designed that they will hold back a generation of young scientists. When our leading thinkers wonder if it still makes sense to encourage young people to get involved in science in the first place because they’re not sure whether the research funding and the grants will be there to cultivate an entire new generation of scientists, that’s something we should worry about. We can’t afford to miss these opportunities while the rest of the world races ahead. We have to seize them. I don’t want the next job-creating discoveries to happen in China or India or Germany. I want them to happen right here, in the United States of America. And that’s part of what this BRAIN Initiative is about. That’s why we’re pursuing other “grand challenges” like making solar energy as cheap as coal or making electric vehicles as affordable as the ones that run on gas. They’re ambitious goals, but they’re achievable. And we’re encouraging companies and research universities and other organizations to get involved and help us make progress. We have a chance to improve the lives of not just millions, but billions of people on this planet through the research that’s done in this BRAIN Initiative alone.
But it’s going to require a serious effort, a sustained effort. And it’s going to require us as a country to embody and embrace that spirit of discovery that is what made America, America. They year before I was born, an American company came out with one of the earliest mini-computers. It was a revolutionary machine, didn’t require its own air conditioning system. That was a big deal. It took only one person to operate, but each computer was eight feet tall, weighed 1,200 pounds, and cost more than $100,000. And today, most of the people in this room, including the person whose cell phone just rang — (laughter) — have a far more powerful computer in their pocket. Computers have become so small, so universal, so ubiquitous, most of us can’t imagine life without them — certainly, my kids can’t. And, as a consequence, millions of Americans work in fields that didn’t exist before their parents were born. Watson, the computer that won “Jeopardy,” is now being used in hospitals across the country to diagnose diseases like cancer. That’s how much progress has been made in my lifetime and in many of yours. That’s how fast we can move when we make the investments.
But we can’t predict what that next big thing will be. We don’t know what life will be like 20 years from now, or 50 years, or 100 years down the road. What we do know is if we keep investing in the most prominent, promising solutions to our toughest problems, then things will get better. I don’t want our children or grandchildren to look back on this day and wish we had done more to keep America at the cutting edge. I want them to look back and be proud that we took some risks, that we seized this opportunity. That’s what the American story is about. That’s who we are.
That’s why this BRAIN Initiative is so important. And if we keep taking bold steps like the one we’re talking about to learn about the brain, then I’m confident America will continue to lead the world in the next frontiers of human understanding. And all of you are going to help us get there.
So I’m very excited about this project. Francis, let’s get to work. God bless you and God bless the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)
A LITTLE EARLIER, AT DARPA’S
DARPA Fold F(x) Program to Advance Synthetic Biomedical Polymers
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting proposals for advancing “Folded Non-Natural Polymers with Biological Function” under a new Broad Agency Announcement for the Fold F(x) program.
While the biopharmaceutical industry has realized many outstanding protein and oligonucleotide reagents and medicines by screening large biopolymer libraries for desired function, significant technical gaps remain to rapidly address the full suite of existing and anticipated national security threats in DoD medicine (e.g., diagnostics and remediation strategies for chemical/biological warfare agents and infectious disease threats).
The objective of Fold F(x) is to develop processes enabling the rapid synthesis, screening, sequencing and scale-up of folded, non-natural, sequence-defined polymers with expanded functionality. The program will specifically address the development of non-natural affinity reagents that can bind and respond to a selected target, as well as catalytic systems that can either synthesize or degrade a desired target.
While non-natural folding polymers (e.g., foldamers) are known, broad utilization of these systems is currently limited because there is no available approach for rapidly developing and screening large non-natural polymer libraries. Fold F(x) will address this technical gap to create new molecular entities that will become future critical reagents in sensor and diagnostic applications, novel medicine leads against viral and bacterial threats, and new polymeric materials for future material science applications.
DARPA anticipates that successful efforts will include (1) novel synthetic approaches that yield large libraries (>109 members) of non-natural sequence-defined polymers; (2) flexible screening strategies that enable the selection of high affinity/specificity binders and high activity/selectivity catalysts from the non-natural libraries; (3) demonstration that the screening approach can rapidly (<4 days) yield affinity reagents or catalysts against targets of interest to the DoD; and (4) demonstration of scalability and transferability to the DoD scientific community.
DARPA seeks proposals that significantly advance the area of non-natural polymer synthesis, screening and sequencing for DoD-relevant threats. Proposals that simply provide evolutionary improvements in state-of-the-art technology will not be considered.
A Proposers’ Day Webinar for the Fold F(x) Program will be held on January 28, 2014. Further details are available under Solicitation Number: DARPA-BAA-14-13. White papers are due by February 6, 2014.
Source: FBO.gov
They deleted this from their website, but not from Internet
Health threats often evolve more quickly than health solutions. Despite ongoing research in the government and the biopharmaceutical industry to identify new therapies, the Department of Defense currently lacks the tools to address the full spectrum of chemical, biological, and disease threats that could impact the readiness of U.S. forces. DARPA created the Folded Non-Natural Polymers with Biological Function program (Fold F(x)) to give DoD medical researchers new tools to develop medicines, sensors, and diagnostics using new libraries of synthetic polymers.
The human body contains natural, folded polymers such as DNA, RNA, and proteins. These are made up of strings of specific biological molecules, or monomers, with the potential for massive variation in sequence, structure, and function. The body’s library of natural polymers is massive, but ultimately limited by the number of naturally present monomers. Through Fold F(x), DARPA is looking to expand the body’s biomolecular arsenal using non-natural, sequence-dictated polymers built from lab-created monomers.
Broad use of folded, non-natural polymers has been limited because no approach yet exists for rapidly developing large libraries of such sequence-dictated polymers. However, recent advances in the theory for predicting folds in polymer structure enable a more targeted search for polymers with specific attributes. Additionally, new, high-throughput analytical chemistry tools may enable researchers to efficiently screen massive subsets of polymers to essentially find the needle in the haystack to confront a given health threat. Finally, recently developed tools for determining polymer structure, function, and in vivo effects can further accelerate the characterization of promising non-natural polymers once they have been identified.
To achieve its objective, Fold F(x) seeks to develop the following capabilities: 1) processes that enable rapid, high-fidelity synthesis of monomers and polymer libraries at scale; 2) automated screening of polymers against a target; and 3) automated sequencing and characterization of successful polymers. The capabilities developed will need to be generalized and extendable so they can be applied to a broad range of potential applications.
If Fold F(x) is successful, synthetic polymers, produced at low cost in libraries containing trillions of combinations, would give scientists vastly more molecules to work with in the search for new health solutions and greatly increase the likelihood that a molecule can be found to combat a given health threat. Synthetic polymers would also offer other benefits over natural polymers including greater lifetime in the blood and less immunogenicity.
LATER…
DOES THIS REMIND YOU OF ANY PARTICULAR IMPLANT: SRI Biosciences DARPA Fold F(X) Synthetic Polymers Contract
SRI Biosciences, a division of SRI International, has been awarded a $10 million contract under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to reimagine how proteins are constructed and to develop novel medicines and diagnostics as countermeasures to chemical and biological threats.
The new contract is part of DARPA’s Folded Non-Natural Polymers with Biological Function program, known as Fold F(x). The initial goal of the program will be to develop biologically active non-natural polymers that are structurally similar to naturally occurring proteins, but without their limitations, such as sensitivity to heat denaturation or chemical degradation.
To develop the new polymers, SRI is combining its expertise in medicinal chemistry and biopolymer design with a breakthrough approach to screening vast numbers of compounds. The novel polymers are being made from entirely new types of monomer structures based on drug-like scaffolds with high functional group densities.
SRI’s compound screening innovation is based on its proprietary Fiber-Optic Array Scanning Technology (FASTcell™). Originally developed to identify circulating tumor cells in a blood sample, FASTcell can distinguish a single tumor cell among tens of millions of healthy ones in a few minutes.
With DARPA support, SRI is expanding this technology to screen 25 million compounds in just one minute.
“Our goal is to develop a method that can enable rapid, large-scale responses to a bioterrorism threat or an infectious disease epidemic,” said Peter Madrid, Ph.D., program director in SRI Biosciences’ Center for Chemical Biology and co-principal investigator and leader of the chemistry effort of the project. “We are looking for non-natural polymers to detect or neutralize identified chemical or biological threats. Once we find potent molecules, we will be able to produce them at mass scale.”
The overall goal of the Fold F(x) program is to expand on the utility of proteins and DNA, and to overcome their limitations byre-engineering their polymer backbones and side chain diversity—creating new molecules with improved functionality such as stability, potency and catalytic function in environments usually hostile for biopolymers.
The knowledge to design new functional molecules from first principles doesn’t exist yet. The alternative is to synthesize enormous libraries of non-natural polymers and screen for sequences that have a desired action. Finding a single effective compound, such as one that can block a virus, may require screening hundreds of millions of compounds.
“We are taking a full departure from how nature does things to come up with new ways of mimicking protein function in a highly tailored and controlled way,” said Nathan Collins, Ph.D., executive director of SRI Biosciences’ Discovery Sciences Section and principal investigator of SRI’s Fold F(x) project. “Our breakthrough has been to adapt SRI’s FASTcell technology to screen libraries of non-natural polymers. It’s very exciting to be doing such novel research.”
Initially the program will focus on screening massive numbers of non-natural polymers for potential uses against security threats.
As a proof of concept, the team will design, synthesize and screen chemically unique libraries of 100 million non-natural polymers for activity against a variety of agents, including toxins such as ricin and viruses such as the H1N1 bird flu strain of influenza.
As the program evolves it may progress to include a range of possibilities, such as how to synthesize molecules to fold such that they emit light, have enhanced levels of strength or elasticity, or store power.
Sources: SRI International, DARPA
Stargate Project
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stargate Project was the 1991 code name for a secret U.S. Army unit established in 1978 at Fort Meade, Maryland, by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and SRI International (a California contractor) to investigate the potential for psychic phenomena in military and domestic intelligence applications. The Project, and its precursors and sister projects, originally went by various code names—GONDOLA WISH, GRILL FLAME, CENTER LANE, PROJECT CF, SUN STREAK, SCANATE—until 1991 when they were consolidated and rechristened as “Stargate Project”.
Stargate Project work primarily involved remote viewing, the purported ability to psychically “see” events, sites, or information from a great distance.[1] The project was overseen until 1987 by Lt. Frederick Holmes “Skip” Atwater, an aide and “psychic headhunter” to Maj. Gen. Albert Stubblebine, and later president of the Monroe Institute.[2] The unit was small-scale, comprising about 15 to 20 individuals, and was run out of “an old, leaky wooden barracks”.[3]
The Stargate Project was terminated and declassified in 1995 after a CIA report concluded that it was never useful in any intelligence operation. Information provided by the program was vague and included irrelevant and erroneous data, and there was reason to suspect that its project managers had changed the reports so they would fit background cues.[4] The program was featured in the 2004 book and 2009 film, both titled The Men Who Stare at Goats,[5][6][7][8] although neither mentions it by name.
THE LIST OF RESEARCHES THEY FUNDED MIGHT BLOW YOUR BRAIN
Key private sector partners have made important commitments to support the BRAIN Initiative, including:
The Allen Institute for Brain Science: The Allen Institute, a nonprofit medical research organization, is a leader in large-scale brain research and public sharing of data and tools. In March 2012, the Allen Institute for Brain Science embarked upon a ten-year project to understand the neural code: how brain activity leads to perception, decision making, and ultimately action. The Allen Institute’s expansion, with a $300M investment from philanthropist Paul G. Allen in the first four years, was based on the recent unprecedented advances in technologies for recording the brain’s activity and mapping its interconnections. More than $60M annually will be spent to support Allen Institute projects related to the BRAIN Initiative.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute: HHMI is the Nation’s largest nongovernmental funder of basic biomedical research and has a long history of supporting basic neuroscience research. HHMI’s Janelia Farm Research Campus in Virginia was opened in 2006 with the goal of developing new imaging technologies and understanding how information is stored and processed in neural networks. It will spend at least $30 million annually to support projects related to this initiative.
Kavli Foundation: The Kavli Foundation anticipates supporting activities that are related to this project with approximately $4 million dollars per year over the next ten years. This figure includes a portion of the expected annual income from the endowments of existing Kavli Institutes and endowment gifts to establish new Kavli Institutes over the coming decade. This figure also includes the Foundation’s continuing commitment to supporting project meetings and selected other activities.
Salk Institute for Biological Studies: The Salk Institute, under its Dynamic Brain Initiative, will dedicate over $28 million to work across traditional boundaries of neuroscience, producing a sophisticated understanding of the brain, from individual genes to neuronal circuits to behavior. To truly understand how the brain operates in both healthy and diseased states, scientists will map out the brain’s neural networks and unravel how they interrelate. To stave off or reverse diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, scientists will explore the changes that occur in the brain as we age, laying the groundwork for prevention and treatment of age-related neurological diseases.
“National Institutes of Health chief Francis Collins says the brain initiative builds on recent advances in attaching electronic implants to brain cells. That was demonstrated last year in dramatic scenes of fully paralyzed patients manipulating robot arms to sip coffee and grasp rubber balls. And through increased computer power, scientists are now better able to collect data from the 86 billion vastly interconnected cells within the 3-pound human brain.”
April 2, 2013, 12:00 PM CESTBy Peter Alexander and Alastair Jamieson, NBC News and Maggie Fox, Senior Writer
President Obama pitched a human brain research initiative on Tuesday that he likened to the Human Genome Project to map all the human DNA, and said it will not only help find cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and autism, but create jobs and drive economic growth…
It’s not clear just what the initiative will do. Obama and collins said they’d appointed a “dream team” of experts to lay out the agenda — they should report back before the end of the summer. They are led by neurobiologists Cori Bargmann of Rockefeller University and William Newsome of Stanford University.
The public-private initiative, with money from groups such as the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s brain mapping project, aims to find a way to take pictures of the brain in action in real time.
“We want to understand the brain to know how we reason, how we memorize, how we learn, how we move, how our emotions work. These abilities define us, yet we hardly understand any of it,” said Miyoung Chun, vice president of science programs at The Kavli Foundation, which is taking part in the initiative and which funds basic research in neuroscience and physics.
The project has some big money and some big science to build on. Allen pumped another $300 million into his institute’s brain mapping initiative a year ago, and has published freely available maps of the human and mouse brains. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute built a whole research campus devoted to brain science, called Janelia Farm, in Virginia.
Arati Prabhakar, director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) pointed to a project that allowed a quadriplegic woman to control a robot arm with her thoughts alone.
“There is nothing like a project to inspire people to go to that next level,” Collins told a telephone briefing.
Not everybody is happy about a centralized, administration-led project. Michael Eisen, a biologist at the University of California at Berkeley, said earlier this year that grand projects in biology such as Project ENCODE for DNA analysis were emerging as the “greatest threat” to individual discovery-driven science.
“It’s one thing to fund neuroscience, another to have a centralized 10-year project to ‘solve the brain,'” Eisen wrote in a Twitter update in February.
“It’s great to see the president supporting basic neuroscience research. And the amount of money is enough to seed new initiatives, which is the way to start something,”
An MRI scan reveals the gross anatomical structure of the human brain. (Image credit: Courtesy FONAR Corporation)
The initial funding for a major new brain research initiative will come largely from the National Institutes of Health and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), with contributions from the National Science Foundation and private foundations, officials said today (April 2).
After President Obama announced the launch of the BRAIN Initiative this morning, the directors of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and DARPA took public questions via the Internet about specific plans for the project and who will pay. The agencies expect about $100 million in 2014 to start the initiative.
BRAIN stands for Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. In it’s planning stages, the project was called the Brain Activity Map, because the goal is to understand how neural networks function. Currently, researchers can detect the activities of single brain cells; they can also measure brain activity on the macro level using technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging. But the middle level — the actions of hundreds and thousands of neurons working together in circuits — remains largely mysterious.
“This initiative is an idea whose time has come,” NIH director Francis Collins said in the White House Q&A session. He called the human brain the “greatest scientific frontier you could think of.” [Gallery: Slicing Through the Brain]
Funding the brain map
President Obama announced this morning that the Fiscal Year 2014 budget would include about $100 million in seed funding for the BRAIN Initiative. Collins broke those numbers down: The NIH will provide about $40 million, much of that from the Neuroscience Blueprint, an NIH collaboration with a rolling investment fund for nervous system research. Some NIH discretionary funds will also go toward the project, Collins said.
The National Science Foundation will provide about $20 million in funding, Collins said, and DARPA will contribute about $50 million. Private foundations, including the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and the Kavli Institute, will also provide funds.
DARPA’s interest in the project stems largely from concerns about “wounded warriors,” said director Arati Prabhakar. The agency hopes the BRAIN Initiative will provide answers about how to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries and other neurological problems for injured soldiers. The project may also inspire new computing processes as scientists learn how the brain works and use that as inspiration for artificial circuits, Prabhakar said.
Bumps ahead?
Federal funding for research has been flat in recent years, and the federal budget sequester has further squeezed agencies such as the NIH and NSF with 9 percent cuts across the board. The BRAIN Initiative is projected to last more than a decade, with no guarantee the fiscal situation will bounce back. Some neuroscience researchers, including Donald Stein of the Emory School of Medicine, have argued that funding is a “zero-sum game” and that the BRAIN Initiative will take resources from other worthy brain research causes.
Collins acknowledged the budget challenge.
“One might well ask, ‘Is this the wrong time to be starting something new and innovative?'” he said.
But with the technology needed to measure large neural networks just coming into its own, delaying would be counterproductive, Collins argued.
“If you could see the opportunity for the next big advance … it would be very hard to say we’re going to hunker down for awhile and wait until the budget gets better,” he said.
2019: Around min 11, they present the tech that they hope to develop into a brain recording implant for humans
Magnetic nanoparticles used to make massive advancements in brain imaging.
A $4.5 Billion Price Tag for the BRAIN Initiative?
The price of President Barack Obama’s BRAIN may have just skyrocketed. Last year, the White House unveiled a bold project to map the human brain in action, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, and commanded several federal agencies to quickly develop plans to make it reality. To kick-start the project, the president allocated about $100 million this year to BRAIN, spread over the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Now, after more than a year of meetings and deliberations, an NIH-convened working group has fleshed out some of the goals and aspirations of BRAIN and tried to offer a more realistic appraisal of the funding needed for the agency’s share of the project: $4.5 billion over the course of a decade.
Neuroscientist Cornelia Bargmann, of Rockefeller University in New York City, who led the working group, sought to put that cost in perspective at a press conference today, saying it amounted to “about one six-pack of beer for each American over the entire 12 years of the program.”
NIH, which provides $40 million of BRAIN’s current funding, doesn’t have a plan in place for where to get extra money called for in the new report, NIH Director Francis Collins told reporters. “It won’t be fast, it won’t be easy, and it won’t be cheap,” he says. Regardless, Collins, who commissioned the new report to guide his agency’s role in the initiative, embraced the plan wholeheartedly:
86 billion neurons take note: I’ve accepted a scientific vision for #BRAINI that will transform neuroscience: http://t.co/12xluad54U#NIH
The report lays out a 10- to 12-year plan for investing $300 million to $500 million per year to develop new tools to monitor and map brain activity and structure, beginning in fiscal year 2016. It suggests focusing on tool development for the first 5 to 6 years, then ramping up funding as new techniques come online. A key goal is to produce cheaper, more accessible tools that all researchers can use without needing special training, so that the overall cost of doing neuroscience research goes down over time, Bargmann says.
The panel acknowledges the uncertainty of their cost estimate. “While we did not conduct a detailed cost analysis, we considered the scope of the questions to be addressed by the initiative, and the cost of programs that have developed in related areas over recent years. Thus our budget estimates, while provisional, are informed by the costs of real neuroscience at this technological level,” the group writes.
The first round of requests for NIH grant applications already went out last fall, and awardees will be announced in September, according to Collins. Additional opportunities to apply for NIH funding will open up by fall, based on this new, more detailed report, he says. Researchers planning to apply “may now consider that [the report] is a blueprint of where we want to go,” Collins added.
*Correction, 10 June, 12:17 p.m.: This article has been corrected to reflect that the $4.5 billion proposed price tag for the BRAIN initiative refers only to NIH’s portion of the project, not all funding. – Science Mag.
Advisory Committee to the Director, Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies® (BRAIN) Initiative Working Group
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) convened a BRAIN Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH, to develop a rigorous plan for achieving this scientific vision. This report presents the findings and recommendations of the working group, including the scientific background and rationale for The BRAIN Initiative® as a whole and for each of seven major goals articulated in the report. In addition, we include specific deliverables, timelines, and cost estimates for these goals as requested by the NIH Director. Read more in the BRAIN 2025 Report.
As the NIH BRAIN Initiative rapidly approached its halfway point, the ACD BRAIN Initiative Working Group 2.0 was asked to assess BRAIN’s progress and advances within the context of the original BRAIN 2025 report, identify key opportunities to apply new and emerging tools to revolutionize our understanding of brain circuits, and designate valuable areas of continued technology development. Alongside, the BRAIN Neuroethics Subgroup was tasked with considering the ethical implications of ongoing research and forecasting what the future of BRAIN advancements might entail, crafting a neuroethics “roadmap” for the Initiative. Read more in the BRAIN 2.0 companion reports (BRAIN Initiative 2.0 report and Neuroethics report).
Wireless linkage of brains may soon go to human testing
Wireless communication directly between brains is one step closer to reality thanks to $8 million in Department of Defense follow-up funding for Rice University neuroengineers.
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which funded the team’s proof-of-principle research toward a wireless brain link in 2018, has asked for a preclinical demonstration of the technology that could set the stage for human tests as early as 2022.
“We started this in a very exploratory phase,” said Rice’s Jacob Robinson, lead investigator on the MOANA Project, which ultimately hopes to create a dual-function, wireless headset capable of both “reading” and “writing” brain activity to help restore lost sensory function, all without the need for surgery.
MOANA, which is short for “magnetic, optical and acoustic neural access,” will use light to decode neural activity in one brain and magnetic fields to encode that activity in another brain, all in less than one-twentieth of a second.
“We spent the last year trying to see if the physics works, if we could actually transmit enough information through a skull to detect and stimulate activity in brain cells grown in a dish,” said Robinson, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and core faculty member of the Rice Neuroengineering Initiative.
Jacob Robinson (Photo by Tommy LaVergne/Rice University)
“What we’ve shown is that there is promise,” he said. “With the little bit of light that we are able to collect through the skull, we were able to reconstruct the activity of cells that were grown in the lab. Similarly, we showed we could stimulate lab-grown cells in a very precise way with magnetic fields and magnetic nanoparticles.”
Robinson, who’s orchestrating the efforts of 16 research groups from four states, said the second round of DARPA funding will allow the team to “develop this further into a system and to demonstrate that this system can work in a real brain, beginning with rodents.”
If the demonstrations are successful, he said the team could begin working with human patients within two years.
Ethics in a void of regulation? No probs, we self regulate, we’re used to that, we’re the Government!
“Most immediately, we’re thinking about ways we can help patients who are blind,” Robinson said. “In individuals who have lost the ability to see, scientists have shown that stimulating parts of the brain associated with vision can give those patients a sense of vision, even though their eyes no longer work.”
The MOANA team includes 15 co-investigators from Rice, Baylor College of Medicine, the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital, Duke University, Columbia University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale’s John B. Pierce Laboratory.
The project is funded through DARPA’s Next-Generation Nonsurgical Neurotechnology (N3) program. – RICE University
The BRAIN Initiative has never been concluded. We’re living it now.
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UPDATE JULY 25, 2021
My conclusion above just got fully confirmed a few days ago, more so, BRAIN went woke, if you can imagine that:
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