Contact: Maridith Geuder
Covering topics drawn from today's headlines, a public program Thursday [Feb. 20] at Mississippi State will examine the past, present and future of biological warfare and bioterrorism.
Lewis R. Brown, professor emeritus of microbiology at the university, will be featured speaker. His presentation begins at 3:30 p.m. in the Swalm Chemical Engineering Building's first-floor auditorium.
The event is sponsored by the campus chapter of Sigma Xi international science and engineering honor society.
Brown, who retired in July after three decades of award-winning teaching and research at MSU, spent his early career in research at the Pine Bluff Arsenal, the United States Army facility in Arkansas that manages chemical and biological weapons, as well as conventional munitions.
"The primary difference between biological disease and biological warfare is premeditation," Brown said. "My remarks will provide a brief history of biological warfare, followed by a discussion of its current and potential contexts."
Brown is a longtime member of Sigma Xi, a professional organization of nearly 75,000. One of 500, his MSU chapter is the oldest at a Mississippi institution of higher learning.
His Thursday lecture will be something of a historical repeat. In 1991, he was part of a campus faculty symposium addressing biological warfare and related issues on the eve of the Persian Gulf War to oust troops of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from their occupation of neighboring Kuwait.
For more about Brown's lecture, telephone (662) 325-7593.