AKA Kanatjan Alibekov

Born: c. 1951
Birthplace: Kauchuk, Kazakhstan

Gender: Male
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Biologist, Chemist

Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Biological weapons designer

Military service: Soviet Army (to Colonel, 1975-92)

Kanatjan Alibekov worked on biological warfare weaponry for the Soviet Union, using bacteria, fungi, toxins, or viruses to attack living organisms (usually humans, but biological weapons have also been engineered to attack cattle and food crops). Alibekov rose to become Deputy Director of Biopreparat, purportedly a pharmaceutical concern but also home to the Soviet state's principle offensive bioweapons program, the most advanced such effort in the world at the time of the USSR's collapse in 1991. At the Biopreparat labs, Alibekov and other scientists developed ways to make known pathogens more resistant to antibiotics, effectively weaponizing diseases from anthrax to the Plague, and created new classes of biol-regulators designed to alter heart rhythm or even human emotions. Biological weapons can be deployed through an aerosol cloud inhaled or absorbed by the victims, or administered into food or water supplies, or released through infected fleas, mosquitoes, or other pests.

Since Alibekov's defection to the United States in 1992, his name has been Westernized as Kenneth Alibek, and he has consulted extensively within the American bio-weapons program (though US officials always stress that their interest is only in establishing a defense against such weapons). The break-up of the Soviet Union forced many of its biochemical warfare scientists to offer their services to other employers, including rogue states and terrorist organizations. Security at the former Soviet bioweapon facilities is so lax, Alibek says, "you can get this information just for the cost of a translator from Russian into English."

    Medical School: MD, Tomsk State University, Tomsk, Russia (1975)
    Professor: Medical Microbiology, George Mason University (2002-05)
    Professor: Biotechnology and Immunotherapy, Institute of Ecology and Medicine, Ukraine (2008-)

    MaxWell Biocorporation President (2006-)
    AFG Biosolutions, Inc President and Chief Scientific Officer
    Aethlon Medical Inc Science Advisory Board
    Biopreparat First Deputy Director (1988-92)
    Biopreparat Scientific Director (1987-88)
    Biopreparat Biochemist (1975-1987)
    Center for Advanced Defense Studies Senior Fellow (2005-)
    Defected 1992, from Russia to United States
    Naturalized US Citizen

Author of books:
Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World -- Told from the Inside By the Man Who Ran It (1999, nonfiction, with Stephen Handelman)
Biological and Chemical Terrorism: A Guide for Healthcare Providers and First Responders (2003, nonfiction, with Raymond S. Weinstein)
Bioterrorism and Infectious Agents: A New Dilemma for the 21st Century (2005, nonfiction, with I. W. Fong)
New and Evolving Infections of the 21st Century (2006, nonfiction, with I. W. Fong)

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