Eighty years ago, the United States began leading a research and development effort to produce the world’s first nuclear weapons. Military and federal agencies, academia, industry, government contractors, and predecessors of today’s national laboratories worked together – with a great deal of support from Manhattan, NY and other localities – to establish overwhelming military superiority for the Allies during World War II. Their efforts effectively ended the war.
Today, the challenge is defense against the biological threat, for which we are at a decided disadvantage. No matter what the source – intentional, accidental, or natural – the Nation and the world are at catastrophic biological risk. We need to take this threat off the table for good.
The Panel held a meeting on July 11, 2019 in New York City to discuss A Manhattan Project for Biodefense – a national, public-private research and development undertaking to defend the Nation against biological threats. These threats include biological warfare, bioterrorism, and infectious disease pandemics
Representatives from the same sorts of organizations that contributed to the original Manhattan Project gathered to talk with the Panel about the biological threat, cutting edge biodefense research, needed resources, and business risk. We will also discussed universal flu vaccine as an example of public-private interagency activity.