Internal Speaker
Prof. Dr. Usman Sumo Friend Tambunan, Professor of Bioinformatics/Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, University of Indonesia

Moderator
Dr.rer.nat Arli Aditya Parikesit, Assistant Professor of Bioinformatics, Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Mathematics and Science, University of Indonesia

Participating Sites

Timor Leste (Dili DLC)

The 2nd studium generale international was held by Faculty of Mathematics and Science, Universitas Indonesia via video conference at Jakarta Distance Learning Center (JDLC) UI on August 15, 2014 from 09:00-11.00 am.

The session discussed about “Bioterrorism as an Invisible Threat to Humanity” that known as a weapon of mass killer. This two hours interactive session consists of presentations from Indonesia and Q&A. Discussion focused on the definition of bioterrorism, its utilization, and prevention (biosafety) and eventually are expected to increase of the public awareness toward the biological weapon.

Bioterrorism is the instrument of biological weapon of mass destruction. The simple definition of bioterrorism is the utilization of pathogenic micro-organism as an instrument of war and terror. Various notorious microbes has been applied as biological weapons, such as Bacillus antracis, Bubonic plague, Cholera, Botulinum, and others. As the weaponizing germs would eventually require sophisticated microbiology laboratory, not many nations can build it. History has shown that this kind of weapon is much easier to prepare than nuclear and chemical ones. Notorious dictators, such as Josef Stalin and Hideki Tojo, have issued policies to develop biological weapons. During World War II, Soviet Union has utilized them as an instrument to repel the invading German army, while the Japan Empire was about to utilized it in the pacific war. According to the ordination of United Nations, the application of Biological weapon during conventional war is strictly forbidden. Any nations that deploy bioterrorism as instrument of war will face certain sanction from United Nations. In one hand, by law, United States has suspended its biological weapon program at 1972. In the other hand, the dissolution of Soviet Union at 1991 has struck a fatal blow to the development of its biological weapon. However, although some random events in the world, such as the outbreak of avian influenza and Mers-Cov virus, are sometimes associated with bioterrorism by the conspiracy theorist, until today, the scientific community still found no evidence of biological weapon at the current outbreak.