Defense against a terrorist attack employing biological or chemical agents requires a multidisciplinary/transdisciplinary understanding of the terrorist's motivations and objectives, threat environment, and agents that could be disseminated against a wide variety of targets. Integrating the countermeasure "tools" in the toolbox, including deterrence, prevention, identification, attribution, protection, response and recovery actions, could help minimize and mitigate the disruption and dislocations associated with such an "event". Though difficult due to the asymmetric nature of the threat, an effective and robust intelligence infrastructure can serve both as a deterrent to use as well as a preventive measure. In the event of an attack, advance warning through the assimilation, analysis, and dissemination of multiple sources of information can provide community leadership with the conditional awareness to make informed decisions with effective outcomes in a dynamic environment. Attack and response resources can be more efficiently and effectively deployed by decision makers when combined with "real time" dispersion and dissemination data.

Current monitoring technology provides a "detect-to-warn" capability for many fast-acting chemicals; biological agents are typically monitored in a "detect-to-treat" mode. When combined with direct and indirect indicators of human and animal disease as well as other factors, the extent of an attack and the populations exposed can be better realized. Though both biological and chemical attacks have the potential for a high number of casualties, chemical attacks tend to be more immediate and may immediately overwhelm medical response capabilities. Early detection of a biological "event", on the other hand, could provide a window of opportunity for valuable interventions. A well-planned and coordinated response must be developed, however, to effectively reduce the surge capacity demands placed upon the response infrastructures.

This conference will address the overall biological and chemical defense system and provide a venue for discussions on current and future research and development activities to effectively improve upon the tools available in the toolbox. Following the initial session, designed to provide an overarching systems perspective of biological and chemical defense, other components including public health surveillance and response, environmental monitoring, food supply vulnerabilities and agriculture security will be examined and discussed. Because attribution is an integral component, a session on chemical and physical forensics of both biological and chemical evidence will be included to present state-of-the-art technologies and methodologies. The closing session will provide a forum for discussion of the changing nature of the future threat environment which will inform investments in effective countermeasures research and development activities.

Biological and chemical defense is a multifaceted problem which requires diverse expertise to solve system element uncertainties. This Gordon Research Conference will bring together a multidisciplinary group from both the public and private sectors to examine the issues in depth and move the science forward to build a better "systems approach" to chemical and biological agent defenses.