Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense – By Margaret E. Kosal
Nanotechnology for Chemical and Biological Defense . New York : Springer . xiv + 158 pages. ISBN 9781441900616 , $109.00 cloth . , 2009 .
The goal of this book is to assess the contribution that the emerging field of nanotechnology can make to chemical and biological defense over the next 20 years. The book originated in a three-day workshop in 2007 sponsored by the Department of Defense, which brought together experts from a variety of technical fields, the national security community, and the social sciences. The workshop was organized around four scenarios that outlined alternative futures in 2030 based on the rate of rate of technological progress and the type of adversary that posed the primary threat to U.S. national security. The book describes the threat posed by advances in nanotechnology, provides a comprehensive review of potential applications of nanotechnology to chemical and biological defense, offers a research agenda to achieve these capabilities, and discusses policy and organizational changes needed to realize this vision. Margaret Kosal, with a PhD in chemistry, professional experience in the chemical and biological defense field, and policy experience working in the Department of Defense, is ideally suited to writing such an ambitious interdisciplinary book.
The heart of the book is Chapter 3, where Kosal describes a wide range of innovations in chemical and biological defense that could be achieved over the next 20 years by breakthroughs in nanotechnology. This chapter forecasts the impact of nanotechnology on four areas of chemical and biological defense—physical protection, detection and diagnostics, decontamination, and medical countermeasures—by 2010, 2020, and 2030. For example, detection and diagnostic systems could be miniaturized to create a so-called laboratory-on-a-chip to provide more sensitive, specific, and rapid analysis of chemical and biological agents. Novel materials could be created that could safely sequester chemical and biological agents or release nanoparticles that could neutralize threat agents. Kosal also foresees combining these technologies into a new generation of protective suits that incorporate embedded sensors to detect chemical and biological threats and intelligent materials that could be activated to neutralize the threat agent. Nanoparticles could also be designed to deliver therapeutic compounds directly to affected organs or to the invading pathogen.
Kosal then describes eight research priorities that need to be addressed in order to achieve the types of revolutionary breakthroughs that she believes are possible. This strategic research and development roadmap provides insights into the types of investments in nanoscience and nanotechnology that would have an impact on multiple dimensions of chemical and biological defense. Kosal also addresses the domestic, international, and disciplinary factors that must be addressed to realize the vision. This is one of the weaker sections of the book, since it does not provide strong or original recommendations on how to foster the innovation that Kosal says is so desperately needed. The book also addresses how advances in nanotechnology could be misused to create new types of weapons or to enhance the effectiveness of existing chemical and biological weapons. For a field prone to sensationalism and doomsday scenarios about “grey goo,” she soberly assesses that the threat of nanotechnology is currently low.
The book also suffers from a few limitations. First, by focusing on the role of nanotechnology in improving defenses against chemical and biological weapons for the military, it neglects the potential applications of nanotechnology for defending civilian populations from such threats. The first responder, public health, and medical communities face different legal, regulatory, operational, and budgetary constraints than the military and rely on different federal agencies to support their homeland security-related research needs. Second, Kosal's assessments of the revolutionary breakthroughs in nano-enabled chemical and biological defenses are overly optimistic, especially in the near-term. There is sound science to back up most of her predicted applications of nanotechnology to chemical and biological defense, but in many cases, this science is still confined to the laboratory at the level of basic research. While her comparison of advanced nano-enabled protective suits to the Borg Shield from the Star Trek series is evocative, it unnecessarily portrays the advances described in her book as science fiction. The applications of nanotechnology to physical protection and decontamination represent the most likely applications of nanotechnology in the near future, since they take the most advantage of the unique properties of nano-scale materials and are less complex. The use of nanotechnology for medical countermeasures is the most difficult since, as Kosal acknowledges, scientists will have to overcome not only technical obstacles to translating research into useful medical products, but also nontechnical barriers such as licensure and public acceptance. Third, although Kosal acknowledges early on that nanotechnology is a dual-use technology with civilian and military applications, she does not sufficiently explore the security implications of this aspect of the technology. She does not discuss how nanotechnology-related research and development for the purpose of improving chemical and biological defenses could generate knowledge or techniques that could be used for hostile purposes or how to reduce the risk of this occurring. She also does not consider the impact of heavy Department of Defense sponsorship of nanotechnology research (which exceeds that of the National Science Foundation) on the perceptions of other countries, such as Russia and China, that have shown a strong interest in nanotechnology.
Kosal makes a convincing case that the field of nanotechnology holds great promise for reducing the threat posed by chemical and biological weapons. The strengths of the book are its cogent explanation of how advances in nanotechnology can improve chemical and biological defenses and its vision for a long-term multidisciplinary research agenda to achieve these breakthroughs. Kosal states that one of the goals of her book is to “better enable an informed debate on the potential role and impact of nanotechnology and emerging science on national and international security.” (p. 130). By providing scientists and policy makers with a well-written analysis of how advances in nanotechnology, chemistry, and biology can be applied to defenses against chemical and biological weapons, she has achieved that goal admirably.
