Ken Alibek
Kanatzhan "Kanat" Baizakovich Alibekov, known as Kenneth "Ken" Alibek since 1992, is a Kazakh-American microbiologist, bioweaponeer, and biological warfare administrative management expert. He was the first deputy director of Biopreparat.
During his career in Soviet bioweaponry development in the late 1970s and 1980s, Alibekov managed projects that included weaponizing glanders and Marburg hemorrhagic fever, and created Russia's first tularemia bomb. His most prominent accomplishment was the creation of a new "battle strain" of anthrax, known as "Strain 836", later described by the Los Angeles Times as "the most virulent and vicious strain of anthrax known to man".
In 1992, he immigrated to the United States; he has since become an American citizen and made his living as a biodefense consultant, speaker, and entrepreneur. He had actively participated in the development of biodefense strategy for the U.S. government, and between 1998 and 2005 he testified several times before the U.S. Congress and other governments on biotechnology issues, saying he was “convinced that Russia’s biological weapons program has not been completely dismantled”. In 1994, Alibek received a congressional award, a bronze Barkley medal awarded in recognition of distinguished public service and his contribution to world peace.
In 2002, Alibek told United Press International that there is concern that monkeypox could be engineered into a biological weapon.
Ohio-based Locus Fermentation Solutions hired Alibek in 2015 as executive vice president for research and development of biologically active molecules for different applications.
Early life and education
Alibek was born Kanat Alibekov in Kauchuk, in the Kazakh SSR of the Soviet Union, to a Kazakh family. He grew up in Almaty, the republic's former capital. He is a certified oncologist, a doctor of science, doctor of philosophy and a doctor of medicine.Career
Alibek's academic performance while studying military medicine at the Tomsk Medical Institute and his family's noted patriotism led to his selection to work for Biopreparat, the secret biological weapons program overseen by the Soviet Union's Council of Ministers. His first assignment in 1975 was to the Eastern European Branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry near Omutninsk, a combined pesticide production facility and reserve biological weapons production plant intended for activation in a time of war. At Omutninsk, Alibek formulated and evaluated various nutrient media and cultivation conditions for the optimization of microbial growth. While there, he expanded his medical school laboratory skills into the complex skill set required for industrial-level production of microorganisms and their toxins.After a year at Omutninsk, Alibek was transferred to the Siberian Branch of the IAB near Berdsk. With the assistance of a colleague, he designed and constructed a microbiology research and development laboratory that worked on techniques to optimize the production of biological formulations.
After several promotions, Alibek was transferred back to Omutninsk, where he rose to the position of deputy director. He was soon transferred to the Kazakhstan Scientific and Production Base in Stepnogorsk to become the new director of that facility. Officially, he was deputy director of the Progress Scientific and Production Association, a manufacturer of fertilizer and pesticide.
At Stepnogorsk, Alibek created an efficient industrial scale assembly line for biological formulations. In a time of war, the assembly line could be used to produce weaponized anthrax. Continued successes in science and biotechnology led to more promotions, which resulted in a transfer to Moscow.
Biopreparat
In Moscow, Alibek began his service as deputy chief of the biosafety directorate at Biopreparat. He was promoted in 1988 to first deputy director of Biopreparat, where he not only oversaw the biological weapons facilities but also the significant number of pharmaceutical facilities that produced antibiotics, vaccines, sera, and interferon for the public.In response to a Spring 1990 announcement that the Ministry of Medical and Microbiological Industry was to be reorganized, Alibek drafted and forwarded a memo to then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev proposing the cessation of Biopreparat's biological weapons work. Gorbachev approved the proposal, but an additional paragraph was secretly inserted into Alibek's draft, resulting in a presidential decree that ordered the end of Biopreparat's biological weapons work but also required them to remain prepared for future bioweapons production.
Alibek used his position at Biopreparat and the authority granted to him by the first part of the decree to begin the destruction of the biological weapons to dismantle biological weapons production and testing capabilities at a number of research and development facilities, including Stepnogorsk, Kol'tsovo, Obolensk, and others. He also negotiated a concurrent appointment to a Biopreparat facility called Biomash. Biomash designed and produced technical equipment for microbial cultivation and testing. He planned to increase the proportion of its products sent to hospitals and civilian medical laboratories beyond the 40% allocated at the time.
Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, Alibek was subsequently placed in charge of intensive preparations for inspections of Soviet biological facilities by a joint American and British delegation. But when he participated in the subsequent Soviet inspection of American facilities, his suspicion that the U.S. did not have an offensive bioweapons program was confirmed before his return to Russia. In January 1992, not long after his return from the U.S., Alibek protested against Russia's continuation of bioweapons work and resigned from both the Russian Army and Biopreparat.
Immigration to the United States
In October 1992, Alibek and his family emigrated to the United States. After moving to the U.S., Alibekov provided the government with a detailed accounting of the former Soviet biological weapons program. During a CIA debriefing, Alibek described the Soviet efforts to weaponize a particularly virulent smallpox strain, producing hundreds of tons of the virus that could be disseminated with bombs or ballistic missiles. Information about the Soviet biological weapons program had already been provided in 1989 by the defected scientist Vladimir Pasechnik.Alibekov has testified before the U.S. Congress several times and has provided guidance to U.S. intelligence, policy, national security, and medical communities.
He was the impetus behind the creation of a biodefense graduate program at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, serving as Distinguished Professor of Medical Microbiology and the program's Director of Education. He also developed the plans for the university's biosafety level three research facility and secured $40 million of grants from the federal and state governments for its construction.
From 1993 to 1999, Alibek took on multiple R&D roles, including a visiting scientist at the National Institute of Health, researching novel antigenic, potentially immunogenic substances for the development of tuberculosis vaccine; project manager at SRS Technologies where he researched, analyzed and developed detailed synthesis reports regarding the biotechnological of foreign countries; and program manager at Battelle Memorial Institute overseeing research projects in medical biotechnology, biosynthesis and fermentation equipment.
In 1999, Alibek published an autobiographical account of his work in the Soviet Union and his defection.
Reporting the prospect of Iraq gaining the ability to get hold of smallpox or anthrax, Alibek said, "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." However, no biological weapons were later found in Iraq.
Entrepreneur and research administrator
Alibek was president, chief scientific officer, and chief executive officer at AFG Biosolutions, Inc in Gaithersburg, Maryland, where he and his scientific team continued their development of advanced solutions for antimicrobial immunity. Motivated by the lack of affordable anti-cancer therapies available in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, AFG was using Alibek's biotechnology experience to plan, build, and manage a new pharmaceutical production facility designed specifically to address this problem.Alibek created a new pharmaceutical production company, MaxWell Biocorporation, in 2006 and served as its chief executive officer and president. Based in Washington, D.C., with several subsidiaries and affiliates in the U.S. and Ukraine, MWB's main stated goal is create a new, large-scale, high-technology, ultra-modern pharmaceutical fill-and-finish facility in Ukraine. Off-patent generic pharmaceuticals produced at this site are intended to target severe oncological, cardiological, immunological, and chronic infectious diseases.
Construction of the Boryspil facility began in April 2007 and was completed in March 2008; initial production was scheduled to begin in 2008. The stated intention was that high-quality pharmaceuticals would be produced and become an affordable source of therapy for millions of underprivileged who currently have no therapeutic options. Abilek stepped down as President of MWB in the summer of 2008 shortly after the facility opened.
Alibek's main research focus was developing novel forms of therapy for late-stage oncological diseases and other chronic degenerative pathologies and disorders. He focuses on the role of chronic viral and bacterial infections in causing age-related diseases and premature aging. Additionally, he develops and implements novel systemic immunotherapy methods for late-stage cancer patients.
Throughout his career, Alibek has published nine research articles on the role of infectious diseases in cancer.