What if the next big war didn’t start with tanks or missiles but with a cough?

Sounds like science fiction, right? But this is exactly what makes bioterrorism such a frightening idea. It’s the use of viruses, bacteria, or toxins by people or groups to cause harm, chaos, or even mass death. And the scariest part? It’s nearly invisible until it’s already too late.

As our technology advances and pandemics like COVID-19 show us how fragile our world can be, the idea of bioterrorism has gone from something you see in movies to something experts are seriously warning us about.

A look back: Bioterrorism isn’t new

While the word bioterrorism might sound modern, using disease as a weapon has been happening for centuries.

• Back in 1346, during the siege of a city called Caffa, Mongol forces reportedly threw plague-infected bodies over the walls to spread disease. That might have even helped spark the Black Death in Europe.
• In World War II, Japan’s infamous Unit 731 experimented on prisoners and released deadly bacteria like anthrax and plague in China.
• Fast forward to 1984, a religious cult in Oregon poisoned salad bars with salmonella to try to rig an election. Over 750 people got sick.
• Then there were the 2001 anthrax letters in the U.S., where powdered anthrax spores were sent through the mail to journalists and senators. Five people died, and the whole country was on edge.

So no, this isn’t just a modern or movie-inspired threat it’s something that’s happened before.

Why Bioterrorism could be the next big threat

We’re living in a time where almost anyone can learn anything online. Combine that with powerful new biotech tools, and you start to see why experts are worried.

Here’s what makes the threat real:

• CRISPR and gene editing let scientists (or bad actors) twist  viruses or even build new ones.
• Biological equipment that used to only exist in government labs is now available for purchase online.
• Delivery methods have gotten sneakier think drones, air vents, or even contaminated food.

Unlike nuclear weapons, biological weapons don’t need millions of dollars or rare materials. They can be small, cheap, and very, very effective especially if no one sees them coming.

Was COVID-19 a Bioterrorism attack?

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room.

Since COVID-19 rocked the world in 2020, people have wondered: was it just a natural pandemic or was it something more sinister?

Here’s what we know so far:

• Most scientists believe it came from animals probably bats through a process called zoonotic spillover.
• Some researchers and governments are still investigating the idea of a lab leak, but that’s very different from a deliberate attack.
• There’s no real evidence that COVID-19 was a planned bioterrorist act.

But the fact that this question even exists shows how scared people are and how unprepared we were.

The Dark Web: where dangerous ideas can spread

The dark web is like the hidden underbelly of the internet places you can’t find through Google. And yes, it’s as shady as it sounds.

People have reported finding:

• Black market listings for biological agents like ricin or anthrax (though many turn out to be scams or law enforcement traps).
• DIY guides on how to make biological weapons.
• Online spaces where extremists look for people with biology skills.

Even if most of it isn’t real or usable, it shows just how low the barrier could be for someone determined enough to try.

What can we do about it?

This isn’t about fear—it’s about being ready. Here’s how we start:

1. Stronger Global Rules

We need better international agreements and more vigilant on undisclosed research especially when it could be used to create harmful viruses.

2. Better Early Warning Systems

We need to be able to spot and respond to outbreaks faster, with good diagnostics, rapid vaccine development, and global cooperation.

3. More Public Awareness

People working in labs need to understand the risks of dual-use science in the field of research that could help or harm humanity depending on its use.

4. Watch the Digital Space

Governments and cybersecurity teams should monitor the dark web for early signs of bioterror plots, just like they do for cyberattacks.

Final Thoughts: Are we ready?

Bioterrorism isn’t just about scary viruses or high-tech labs,it’s about how connected and vulnerable we’ve become. COVID-19 wasn’t an act of war, but it taught us a hard lesson: invisible threats can shut down the world faster than any army.

This doesn’t mean we should panic. It means we should be smart, stay informed, and take real steps to prepare for a future where the next big threat might come from a petri dish, not a battlefield.

The best weapon we have? Awareness and Action.

The post Bioterrorism: Unplanned Invisible War Have you ever thought about a war without bombs?  appeared first on InnoHEALTH magazine.

1. Can you explain structural bioinformatics and how it is integrated into your research ? 

Structural Bioinformatics encompasses studies into three dimensional biomolecular composition and its modulation by atomic bonding patterns, active-site architectures, domain constitution, surface accessibility as well as inter-molecular forces, to help understand how biomolecules adapt to specific functions, and in particular, and how they cooperate with each other to perform these functions more efficiently. 

My group at NIPGR New Delhi is currently addressing Food Security and Biodiversity Conservation. Our work in both of these areas is deeply integrated with structural bioinformatics. For example, we investigate how nature has evolved and optimized mechanisms to enhance crop yields through photosynthetic efficiency. This requires a detailed structural analysis of the octameric carbon fixing enzyme RuBisCO, often argued to be the most abundant protein on the planet! My other interest is to decipher the silent language of plants, combining Botany, Chemistry and Geography. Here too, structural data (both macro- and molecular), is crucial to interpret ‘the variable chemical code’ that plants use to communicate with each other, and the rest of the biosphere.

2. What specific applications do you see for Structural Bioinformatics in enhancing crop resilience ?

Traditionally, this field has been famous in drug discovery and biomedical health applications, but the past decade has witnessed a huge surge in studies incorporating structural insights into crop biology, specially towards rational design of plant natural products and creation of Climate Smart crops. Crop Resilience can benefit directly from structural bioinformatics in terms of identification and modeling of key genes and proteins that play a crucial role in environmental stress and disease resistance. Structural bioinformatics can elucidate functional roles of specific base pairs and amino acid residues, as well as intermolecular networks associated with pathogenesis, towards predicting spatio-temporal maps of yield modulation under varying stress conditions.

3. With the vast amount of genomic data available, what strategies do you employ to ensure effective integration and analysis for your research objectives ?

The -Omics revolution of this millennium, mediated by advanced sequencing technologies, has led to an exponentially increasing dataset of biomolecular signatures, offering new opportunities in deciphering biology. Most importantly, availability of this data has released us from the confines of working with model organisms, so that, for example, real crops can now be investigated and improved. However, availability of such enormous datasets also poses new challenges; addressing a question is akin to finding a single needle in a million haystacks. Our primary strategy to ensure effective use of high throughput multi-omics datasets is to integrate diverse sources of information, and reduce data dimensionality by combining modern computational techniques with data FAIRification methods, to ensure Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability and Reproducibility of both data and results.

4. In what ways can genomics and structural bioinformatics contribute to the conservation of plant biodiversity and ecosystems ?

Modern Data science techniques, particularly Biodiversity informatics play a crucial role on ecosystem conservation, as evident from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and several other world repositories. Our own work in Invasion Genomics also makes use of these tools. Genomics in conjunction with structural bioinformatics, proteomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics and epigenomics, can help to identify species that are vulnerable to environmental changes. Many other contributions of such Multi-Omics approaches to the conservation of plant biodiversity and ecosystems include monitoring, characterizing and restoring  biodiversity, as well as by providing rational leads for Biodiversity Management decisions. Such interventions are possible not just for individual organisms or reference genomes, but entire ecosystems, through identification, annotation and mapping of functional genetic variations, use of DNA barcoding, adaptive trait identification, species distribution modeling, establishing ex-situ breeding programs, predicting impacts of environmental change on regional biodiversity etc.

5. Could you elaborate on any innovative techniques or technologies that you are using in your Research ?

We have been exploring new knowledge-based approaches like Open Notebook Science and RAG/LLMs for extracting knowledge from locked literature, using machine intelligence over natural language processing (NLP). Open Notebook Science enables innovative and disruptive Knowledge Sharing Practices in the community, bringing together climate scientists as well as policymakers. Our work in AI over NLP comprises optimizing the output of Large Language Models (LLMs) by means of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). Taken together, these two new strategies have allowed us to create a community of like minded climate and technology enthusiasts all over the world, known as #semanticClimate! We hope to build a lightweight term-based climate knowledge prosthetic that will travel up generations, as well as a factually educated group of young people worldwide, with energy and commitment for Climate.

6. What are the main areas of research that your lab is currently focusing on, and why are they Important ?

The major research thematics in the lab presently span Climate, Conservation and food security as I have already outlined. Our work in #semanticClimate raises awareness; Climate Change impacts everyone on Earth, but above all the Global South, and therefore is of immediate importance to us all. Our work in Food security and enhancing photosynthetic efficiency translates directly into higher agricultural productivity and in turn, greater biomass. Within this ambit, our aim is to try and rectify a flaw that is at the heart of photosynthesis – the global carbon fixing enzyme RubisCO is less efficient in higher plants due to its inability to distinguish atmospheric CO₂ from Oxygen. We are investigating unicellular green algae that have evolved a unique biophysical CCM to successfully separate RubisCO from oxygen, resulting in tremendous increase in photosynthetic efficiency. We are trying to identify key components of this process in the hope of using it to improve crops. 

The third focus of our lab is in the area of biodiversity informatics where we address the question of how plants become invasive and how this capacity confers upon their genomes, the phenomenal ability to travel, adapt and expand into new realms. This work is important for Ecosystem Conservation, as well as for understanding evolution of ploidy in the plant kingdom.

7. How do emerging technologies, such as CRISPR and machine learning, play a role in your research, and what potential do you see for future applications ?

CRISPR has completely changed the concept of genetic modifications, and Indian researchers have been hugely successful in gene editing for Crop improvement and Agri Tech. Machine learning techniques have also transformed information discoverability and data reproducibility in the health, agriculture and pharmaceutical industry.

Both these techniques are easy to incorporate or understand, thereby connecting science and the industry to society. I see huge potential for both these technologies in mediating food security and

sustainable agriculture for a growing population on the planet. In #semanticClimate, we make use of AI over NLP to transform locked literature into semantic, hypermedia form, resulting in FAIRified documents that can be traversed by machines and embedded in the Linked Open Data cloud. We are using this to create a Climate Knowledge Framework,  a self-improving network of semantic tools, using Python and rOpenSci, embedded into Raspberry pi, empowering every citizen to populate their own knowledge graphs from open source!

8. What policy changes do you believe are necessary to support the integration of genomics and bioinformatics in addressing food security and ecosystem conservation ?

Integration of basic science with modern techniques like genomics and informatics can drive informed policy decisions that support both food security and species survival or ecosystem stability in the face of climate change and habitat destruction. India is leading in the use of knowledge-based approaches as the driving force to steer our national and international policies, such as, for example, India’s National Biodiversity Action Plan (NBSAP) or the more recent Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP) of India released by the Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to Govt of India. Many of our national policies already promote sharing and access to open data generated using public funds by various Ministries/Departments/Subordinate offices/Organizations/Agencies of Government of India. These policies are not limited to the Center, but extend to the States as well, and are meant to be used for national planning, development and awareness to address societal and technological challenges. However, I wonder how many of us have actually read any of these policy documents. My belief is that before trying to ‘change’ policy, it is imperative that we make ourselves ‘aware’ of existing policies in crucial areas, but many of us remain clueless or more importantly, disinterested in policy matters. This attitude has to change, and requires a paradigm shift in the way we think about these issues, as citizens, from high schoolers to educators at all levels, retired citizens, city planners, voluntary organisations etc: Ignorance is Not Bliss!

9. Can you share what inspired you to pursue a career in plant genetics and molecular biology ?

Growing up, I had no expectation about being a scientist; Born at the Military Headquarters of War, with three generations of illustrious officers in the family, we traveled a lot, often living in distant small towns. A lot of my childhood was spent in North Eastern India, where I first learnt about ‘sacred groves’, little pockets of traditionally protected natural wildlife, across India’s biodiversity hotspots. This gave me the opportunity to explore nature, and discover my love for plants and for reading. We didn’t have the internet, but we had access to very good libraries; I loved the adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but also the adventures of Mendel, Darwin and Marie Curie. I was moved  by stories of scientists, how Newton felt about light transforming to matter, what Lavoisier might have discovered if he hadn’t been guillotined in the French Revolution, or how Vavilov’s crop gene bank was saved even though he died of the one thing he spent his life trying to prevent (Starvation). The turn of the millennium was a pivotal moment for Technology in India and I believe that too had a strong effect on my desire to pursue Genetics-based technologies. Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee announced National Technology Day to honor the successful nuclear test conducted at Pokhran in 1998. The past 25 years have proved how that time was ripe for India to advance her capability and potential in Science and Technology, and I feel lucky to have been part of this movement, serving as a beacon for the nation’s future and India’s technological growth. 

10. What advice would you give to young scientists who are just starting their careers in plant Research ?

My wish (and advice) would be for more of us to inculcate an interdisciplinary approach, or transdisciplinary thinking in our research, and to avoid getting Silo-ed into disjoint boxes of expertise. This is not difficult at all, but it’s the only way we can jointly combat the most pressing global and societal challenges. You can begin today; Make friends outside your own classroom, listen to seminars by people from a different subject expertise, attend meetings where you might run into someone from a completely different research area.  It can be a fabulous learning experience as well; exploring long distance field trips, going for writing retreats or picnics, getting people on a bus is the best way to break ice, get them talking and designing inter-disciplinary collaborations! Who knows, we might be able to combine drug discovery and biomedical health priorities, for example, with crop biology, towards rational design of Climate Smart crops. My own diverse educational background allows me to work at the interface of botany, geography and chemistry, and the good news is that we have an increasing number of young researchers who seem to be aware of the benefits of working at the intersection of multiple fields and technologies. You can use high resolution land records from rural India, you can use genomes, fossil records of pollen in ancient civilizations, robots, GPU chips, mathematical simulations, and all kinds of rocket science, to address the global challenge of feeding an ever increasing population, why not?!

11. What are some of the biggest challenges you face in your research, and how do you overcome them ?

A career in research has several challenges that have to be constantly overcome, spanning from ensuring data quality, time management, funding sources, building a skilled team and much more. I find myself incredibly lucky to be able to fulfil my inherent sense of curiosity about the natural world, something that a scientific career enables uniquely. But it is a constant challenge to balance basic research with application oriented research that gets priority for fundability. It’s a tricky line to tread and I call it my own ‘Verity-Vision’ balance (aka Work-Life balance!).  

One of the most consistent challenges I face in research is the ‘publish or perish’ mentality, that makes it very difficult for researchers to focus on efficiency and research conduct. They become more concerned about the ‘destination’ rather than the scientific journey. Although the situation is global and unlikely to change anytime soon, my solution is to encourage a change in mindset of young scholars. For academia to break free of the publisher’s monopoly, we must focus on FAIR principles and open access publications, as well as for example, completely new paradigms like ‘Nanopublications’; a FAIR and quick way to make the world sit up and recognise your work, and you can have an unlimited number of these. 

Another research challenge that I find to be common across lady researchers globally, is how we are somehow more prone to self-questioning, guilt and doubt, or the fear that combining an academic career with a family is not possible. Highlighting stories of successful women scientists can go a long way to overcome this; as your magazine is doing! In this regard, may I request everyone reading this article to please encourage your female friends and colleagues in STEMM, to join the National SWATI portal, launched in 2024, an initiative of the Indian Science Academies. It takes a minute to sign up, just use this link or the QR code below! The idea behind ‘SWATI’ (Science for Women, A Tech and Innovation Portal) is to bring together role models and opportunities on a single platform, bridging gaps and bringing out the huge untapped potential among WiS whose contributions often go unnoticed. I do hope you will help us expand this initiative to reach each and every Indian girl/woman in STEMM!

Authors Biography

Dr. Gitanjali Yadav, Group Leader at NIPGR, New Delhi, and co-founder of #semanticClimate, is an expert in Genomics and Machine Intelligence for food security and conservation. An adjunct Professor at IISER Bhopal and visiting Lecturer at Cambridge, she holds a Ph.D. in Immuno-Informatics (NII, JNU). Recognized with prestigious awards like the Hamied Fellowship and INSA Medal, she advocates Open Data, leads the SWATI portal for Women in STEMM, and promotes sustainable solutions. Dr. Debleena Bhattacharya, Associate editor, interviews her on advancing food security via structural bioinformatics.

The post Advancing Food Security, Biodiversity, and Climate Solutions through Structural Bioinformatics appeared first on InnoHEALTH magazine.

1. Given your vast experience in building technology businesses. What is the hard part of building a technology business? What advice would you give your 20-year-old self if you were to start again?.

It’s never the technology – it’s always the team. Finding the right mix of creativity and compatibility amongst the founders and core group is one of the most difficult things to accomplish in a startup.

2. Increasingly we are breaking new ground when it comes to healthcare technology. What are the top challenges you see in building healthcare businesses?.

Again, it’s never the technology–here I believe it is coordinating between human expectations and societal systems, and the timing can be critical. Get too far ahead of what people will accept and you have no market–in healthcare that means both doctors and their patients. Medicine by definition is conservative and derivative. Doctors wish to do no harm, but they also need to derive income from the skills they were taught–threaten either of those premises, and regardless of the brilliance of your technology, you will go nowhere. Likewise, if you get too far in front of what societal systems (government payers) will accept, you face a long and probably fruitless struggle.

3. In a horizon of 3-5 years do you see any major advancements in the healthcare field, if yes, can you share your insights on what kind of these advances would be?.

I think there is general agreement that the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) will be broad, deep and disruptive in the healthcare field. Even now, healthcare regulators are struggling to approve AI approaches to a number of fields and conditions. We have recently seen the first tentative FDA approval of AI screening in mammography–others will certainly follow. Getting doctors and patients up to speed on these new tools will take time and training.

4. Healthcare delivery has been costly both in terms of time and money. We have seen during the pandemic how collectively as humanity we pushed boundaries. Can we be more sustainable from here onwards in a systematic manner or will we go back to the old mindset and maintain the status quo of rising costs for healthcare.

Given human nature and the systems we construct, I think a bit of both will happen. As the pandemic fades from immediate perception, aided in part by our ever shortening attention spans (fed by a hyperactive media), we will struggle to maintain focus on what threats are actually most dangerous. Continuing misinformation and disinformation will only compound our struggle with that focus. Nevertheless, institutional elements within society seem to be getting better at adapting to this ever increasing rate of change and may actually evolve their “over the horizon” vision to the benefit of us all. I am an eternal optimist and I do see many things getting better.

5. What can be done to improve our agility in general to responding to crisis situations. (Next pandemic are we ready for it ?).

I don’t think we will ever be as ready as we could/should be. But, having said that, I believe we are getting incrementally better. Our tools, especially those developed during COVID (mRNA, CRISPR-CAS9) are definitely expanding at an astonishing rate and will find application in solving increasingly complex challenges

6. With the new geopolitical situation, we see questions being raised about the global supply chain. What kind of cross border collaboration would you see emerge from here? Especially between the USA and India.

In my view, India and the US have acted both gallantly and selfishly as current crises have evolved. The sharing of ideas and technologies has been particularly magnanimous, but when faced with perceived threats to their own populations, like most countries, they have tended to act in a more protectionist and self-centred manner. The result has been to damage the trust and efficiency of a global trading system that has taken decades to develop.

7. When it comes to frontiers of science and technology, at times there is a lot of controversy involved. Think CRISPR, Genetically modified crops, geoengineering. What is your view on unresolved questions around emerging technologies in addressing the big challenges we face now ? (climate change for example).

Here again, unfortunately, the media has often not been our friend. Technology, like science, tends to be agnostic–for every good use, someone will find a bad one. But the way in which many of these breakthroughs are presented to the public can be unfortunate. GMO crops can be life-saving and a genuine answer to global starvation, but many people are needlessly terrified of them. CRISPER holds promise to eradicate truly horrible maladies, but it also may be used to tweek the human condition in vain and unpredictable ways. Geoengineering can actually cool the planet, but when to use it, at whose authority and with what unintended consequences is something worthy of real and thorough scientific study. And climate change, that grandest of all perceived threats to humanity, needs to be viewed with cooler eyes. Despite what you read, not every natural disaster is being driven by climate change. Nor is it proceeding at such breakneck speed that we need to stampede ourselves into policies that may well bankrupt our economies or blind us to wiser solutions. Perhaps most importantly, we must not let our fear of climate change–or any other change–lead us to proscribe the energy solutions so badly needed by so much of the world.

8. Organisations such as yours, NOVIM, work to improve the understanding of cutting edge technologies. Why do we need them even more now? Do you see an urgent need for such actors with sustainability and climate change topics in mind?.

In our lifetimes we’ve all seen the devastation of war and famine and disease, and we’ve read histories of conditions far worse in the past. As much as we might wish it, change is one thing we cannot avoid, and in many instances change works to our betterment. What seems different to me now is the rate of change has accelerated to the point where we have difficulty understanding it, planning on how to adapt to it, and accurately separating good change from the not so good–or even dangerous. To twist a Mark Twain quote that is even truer today than when he said it: “Misinformation can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”

It is incumbent on us as members of a modern society to learn to discern the truth from the untruth, the meaning from the distortion, the science from the ignorance. That is what NOVIM strives to do.

9. Any key message for our readers on which areas to focus that can make healthcare more sustainable and affordable.

Read and learn everything you can about the rapidly changing world of healthcare, and then apply what you have learned to the benefit of your family, community, country and the world. These are incredibly fascinating times to be alive–and you have more opportunities than ever before to help your fellow man.  

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