La minaccia NBCR - Istituto Affari Internazionali

europei, nella definizione concreta di bisogni per la sicurezza da tradurre in termini di ricerca
tecnologica 46 .
Di questi 15 ben 3 trattano specificatamente di questioni B, mentre uno affronta il tema in
maniera non esclusiva:
1) Enhancing the detection and protection against biological harmful substances:
Biological weapons have been a threat for many years but recent advances in biotechnology
make the problem potentially more serious. Hence the escalating dangers must be controlled
and detection and alarm systems developed. Biological detection technologies are in a much
less mature stage of development than chemical detectors so the BODE (Biological Optical
Detection Experiment) project addresses the necessity of developing a reliable, accurate,
stand off detection tool for biological particles. This research project aims to identifying the
functional and operational requirements of a detection apparatus and to propose a
specification for a biological detection demonstrator device, to design, manufacture and
integrate demonstrator elements. The consortium is composed of industrialists, research
centres, and end users from six different countries.
2) Designing models to predict the dispersion of microbes:
The AEROBACTICS project (Assessment of the quantity, identity, viability, origin and
dispersion of airborne micro-organisms for application in crisis management tools) aims to
develop models to firstly better distinguish between the natural background of micro-
organisms and environmental pathogenic traits, and the real biological attacks and
subsequently to predict the aerial dispersion from an unwanted release. Sensor systems for
bioterror detection require quantitative input about the natural background of micro-
organisms and environmental pathogenic traits, in order to distinguish natural occurrences
from real attacks. However, knowledge of numbers, species, viability and pathogenicity of
airborne micro-organisms is extremely scarce, and models to predict background fluctuations
are inadequate. AEROBACTICS is designed to close these gaps of knowledge. Two models
will be developed, one for background levels and long-range dispersion, and one for the
aerial dispersion from an unwanted release. Both natural events and intentional releases of
micro-organisms will be utilised experimentally.
46 I progetti selezionati nel quadro della PASR 2006, si svolgono a partire dal 2007: “15 new security research
projects to combat terrorism”, Brussels, 13th October 2006, MEMO/06/375,
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/06/375&format=HTML&aged=0&language=
EN&guiLanguage=en
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