Kanatzhan "Kanat" Alibekov (; ; born 1950), known as Kenneth "Ken" Alibek since 1992, is a Kazakh-American microbiologist, bioweaponeer, and biological warfare administrative management expert. 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". 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. 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 2014 as executive vice president for research and development. Biography Early life and education 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. Career 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. 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.