Ken Alibek

Kanatzhan "Kanat" Baizakovich Alibekov (born 1950), known as Kenneth "Ken" Alibek since 1992, is a Kazakh-American microbiologist, bioweaponeer, and biological warfare administrative management expert.

He is a certified oncologist, a doctor of science, doctor of philosophy and a doctor of medicine.

He rose through the ranks of the Soviet Army to become the first deputy director of Biopreparat with a rank of Colonel, during which time he claimed to oversee a vast program of 40 biological warfare facilities with 32,000 employees.

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".

His first assignment in 1975 was to the Eastern European Branch of the Institute of Applied Biochemistry (IAB) near Omutninsk, a combined pesticide production facility and reserve biological weapons production plant intended for activation in a time of war.

At Omutninsk, Alibek mastered the art and science of formulating and evaluating 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 (another name of the branch was the Berdsk scientific and production base).

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 (another reserve BW facility) 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.

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.

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.

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 1992, he defected to the United States; he has since become an American citizen and made his living as a biodefense consultant, speaker, and entrepreneur.

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.

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.

In 1994, Alibek received a congressional award, a bronze Barkley medal awarded in recognition of distinguished public service and his contribution to world peace.

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 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.

Alibek was born Kanat Alibekov in Kauchuk, in the Kazakh SSR of the Soviet Union (present-day Kazakhstan), to a Kazakh family.

He grew up in Almaty, the republic's former capital.

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.