Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Endnote
Most, if not all, of the major technological advances of the 20th Century, from aviation and space
flight to nuclear power, computers, and germ warfare, have been tied to military funding. For
example, the first major advances in electronic computing were the direct result of military need for
computer-based encryption and decryption systems in World War II. In their military-funded work to
potentiate the effects of mustard gas in the battlefield, Goodman and Gilman developed the first
cancer chemotherapy in the 1940s. The walkie-talkie, developed for troops in World War II, laid the
foundation for the cellular phone service. Later, during the cold war with Russia, the U.S. military
establishment funded the nascent field of AI as a means of automatically decoding Russian text.
Similarly, the progenitor of the Internet was developed as a nuclear-proof communications link
between military centers of operation and academic institutions involved in nuclear weapon R&D.
Today, the U.S. military is the largest market for supercomputers and high-performance computing
clusters.
One of the long-standing interests of the U.S. military has been offensive and defensive biological
weapons. With the increase in military R&D funding following the events of September 11, 2001, this
interest has taken on a new urgency. The first public information on next-generation biological
warfare R&D was released in July of 2002, when it was reported that scientists at the State University
of New York at Stony Brook had successfully synthesized the Polio virus. The research, funded by the
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), demonstrated that a living, lethal virus could
be constructed in the laboratory, based on the published genetic sequence, like the one in
Figure 10-
7
.
Figure 10-7 Polio Virus Sequence from Entrez.
POLIO VIRUS SEQUENCE
1 ctgcagtcct catgtactat ggtagtgcca tggattagca acaccacgta tcggcaaacc
61 atagatgata gtttcaccga aggcggatac atcagcgtct tctaccaaac tagaatagtc
121 gtccctcttt cgacacccag agagatggac atccttggtt ttgtgtcagc gtgtaatgac
181 ttcagcgtgc gcttgttgcg agataccaca catatagagc aaaaagcgct agcacagggg
241 ttaggtcaga tgcttgaaag catgattgac aacacagtcc gtgaaacggt gggggcggca
301 acatctagag acgctctccc aaacactgaa gccagtggac caacacactc caaggaaatt
361 ccggcactca ccgcagtgga aactggggcc acaaatccac tagtcccttc tgatacagtg
421 caaaccagac atgttgtaca acataggtca aggtcagagt ctagcataga gtctttcttc
481 gcgcggggtg catgcgtgac cattatgacc gtggataacc cagcttccac cacgaataag
541 gataagctat ttgcagtgtg gaagatcact tataaagata ctgtccagtt acggaggaaa
601 ttggagttct tcacctattc tagatttgat atggaactta cctttgtggt tactgcaaat
661 ttcactgaga ctaacaatgg gcatgcctta aatcaagtgt accaaattat gtacgtacca
721 ccaggcgctc cagtgcccga aaaatgggac gactacacat ggcaaacctc atcaaatcca
781 tcaatctttt acacctacgg aacagctcca gcccggatct cggtaccgta tgttggtatt
841 tcgaacgcct attcacactt ttacgacggt ttttccaaag taccactgaa ggaccagtcg
901 gcagcactag gtgactccct ttatggtgca gcatctctaa atgacttcgg tattttggct
