2001
#1-5: Five Unnamed Microbiologists. Died: October 4, 2001 Four of Five unnamed microbiologists on a plane that was brought down by a missile near the Black sea on the Russian border. Traveling from Israel to Russia; business not disclosed. Three scientists were experts in medical research or public health. The plane is believed by many in Israel to have had as many as four or five passengers who were microbiologists. Both Israel and Novosibirsk are homes for cutting-edge microbiological research. Novosibirsk is known as the scientific capital of Siberia. There are over 50 research facilities there, and 13 full universities for a population of only 2.5 million people.
#6: Dr. Benito Que, Age: 52. Found Comatose: November 12, 2001. Died later in hospital. Found in the street near the laboratory where he worked at the University of Miami Medical School. He was a cell biologist, involved in research on aids, oncology research in the hematology department.
#7-#9: Avishai Berkman, Amiramp Eldor and Yaacov Matzner Died: November 24, 2001 Another airplane crash kills 3 scientists. At about the time of the Black Sea crash, Israeli journalists had been sounding the alarm that two Israeli microbiologists had been murdered, allegedly by terrorists; including the head of the Hematology department at Israel's Ichilov Hospital, as well as directors of the Tel Aviv Public Health Department and Hebrew University School of Medicine. Five microbiologists in this list of the first eight people that died mysteriously in airplane crashes worked on cutting edge microbiology research. Four of the five were doing virtually identical research - research that has global political and financial significance.
#10: Dr. David Schwartz, Age: 57. Died: December 10, 2001. Murdered by stabbing in rural home Loudon County, Virginia. He was extremely well respected in biophysics, and regarded as an authority on DNA sequencing. Three teens who were into the occult were charged with murder in the slashing death.
#11: Dr. Set Van Nguyen, Died: December 14, 2001. Found dead in the airlock entrance to the walk-in refrigerator in the laboratory he worked at in Victoria State, Australia. The room was full of deadly gas which had leaked from a liquid nitrogen cooling system. Room was vented. Working on a vaccine to protect against biological weapons, or a weapon itself. In January, 2001, the magazine Nature published information that two scientists, Dr. Ron Jackson and Dr. Ian Ramshaw, using genetic manipulation and DNA sequencing, had created an incredibly virulent form of mousepox, a cousin of smallpox and Dr. Nguyen had worked for 15 years at the same Australian facility.
#12: Dr. Don Wiley Age: 57, Vanished December 16, 2001. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard University, top Deadly Contagious Virus expert, vanished; abandoned rental car was found on the Hernando de Soto Bridge outside Memphis, TN. He was heavily involved in research on DNA sequencing, and was last seen at around midnight on November 16, leaving the St. Jude's Children's Research Advisory Dinner at The Peabody Hotel in Memphis, TN. Associates attending the dinner said he showed no signs of intoxication, and no one has admitted to drinking with him.
#13: Dr. Vladimer Pasechnik Age: 64, Found Dead: December 23, 2001. Found dead in Wiltshire, England, a village near his home. He had defected from Russia to UK. He had been the #1 scientist in the FSU's bioweapons program. It was thought he was involved with exhuming the bodies of the 10 London victims of the 1919 Type A flu epidemic. Pasechnik died six weeks after the planned exhumations were announced. On November 23, 2001, Pasechnik's death was reported in the New York Times as having occurred two days earlier. Pasechnik's death was made in the United States by Dr. Christopher Davis of Virginia, who stated that the cause of death was a stroke. Dr. Davis was the member of British intelligence who de-briefed Dr. Pasechnik at the time of his defection. Pasechnik was heavily involved in DNA sequencing research. He had just founded a company like three other microbiologists working to provide powerful alternatives to antibiotics. Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik was the boss of William C. Patrick III who holds five patents on the militarized anthrax used by the United States. Patrick is now a private biowarfare consultant to the military and CIA. Patrick developed the process by which anthrax spores could be concentrated at the level of one trillion spores per gram. No other country has been able to get concentrations above 500 billion per gram. The anthrax that was sent around the eastern United States last fall was concentrated at one trillion spores per gram.
2002
#14: Dr. Alexi Brushlinski. Died: January 2002. Russian Microbiologist. Murdered, and Brushlinski was killed in Moscow. Well known around the world and members of the Russian Academy of Science.
#15: Dr. Ivan Glebov. Died: January 2002 Russian Microbiologist. Glebov died as the result of a bandit attack. Well known around the world and members of the Russian Academy of Science.
#16: Dr. Vladamir Korshunov Age: 56. Died: February 9, 2002. Found dead on a Moscow street. Head was bashed in. Korshunov was head of the microbiology sub-facility at the Russian State Medical University. He was found dead in the entrance to his home with a head injury. On Feb. 9 the Russian newspaper Pravda reported that Korshunov had probably invented either a vaccine to protect against biological weapons, or a weapon itself.
#17: Dr. Ian Langford Age: 40, Died: February 12, 2002. A Russian who was a Senior Research Associate in CSERGE, UK. He was a leading university research scientist working on Global Environment, specializing in links between human health and the environment risk, was found dead at his blood-spattered and apparently ransacked home. Specialist in leukemia and infections.
#18: Tanya Holzmayer 46, Died: February 28, 2002: Two dead microbiologists in San Francisco: While taking delivery of a pizza, Tanya Holzmayer was shot and killed by a colleague, Guyang Huang, 38, who then apparently shot himself. Holzmayer moved to the US from Russia in 1989. Her research focused on the part of the human molecular structure that could be affected best by medicine. Holzmayer was focusing on helping create new drugs that interfere with replication of the virus that causes AIDS. One year earlier, Holzmayer obeyed senior management orders to fire Huang.
#19: Dr. David Wynn-Williams Age: 55 Died: March 24, 2002. Hit by a car while jogging near his home in Cambridge, England. He was an astrobiologist with the Antarctic Astrobiology Project and the NASA Ames Research Center. He was studying the capability of microbes to adapt to environmental extremes, including the bombardment of ultraviolet rays and global warming.
#20: Steven Mostow, Age: 63, Died: March 25, 2002. One of the country's leading infectious disease and bioterrorism experts and was associate dean at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He died in a plane crash near Centennial Airport. He was known as "Dr. Flu" for his expertise in treating influenza, and expertise on bioterrorism. Mostow was one of the country's leading infectious disease experts.
#21: Roman Kuzmin 24-year-old Russian surgeon studying in Connecticut was fatally struck by a car as he fled a store with three stolen rolls of film, police said. He was studying to be an orthopedic surgeon.
2003
NOTE: More than 310 Iraqi scientists are thought to have perished at the hands of Israeli secret agents in Iraq since fall of Baghdad to US troops in April 2003.
#22: Dr. Leland Rickman, Age: 47. Died June 24, 2003. UC San Diego expert on infectious diseases and, since Sept. 11, 2001 a consultant on bioterrorism. He was 47. Rickman died while on a teaching assignment in Lesotho, a small country bordered on all sides by South Africa. He had complained of a headache, but the cause of death was not immediately known. The physician had been working in Lesotho with Dr. Chris Mathews, director of the UC San Diego Medical Center's Owen Clinic, teaching African medical personnel about the prevention and treatment of AIDS. Rickman, the incoming president of the Infectious Disease Assn. of California, was a multidisciplinary professor and practitioner with expertise in infectious diseases, internal medicine, epidemiology, microbiology and antibiotic utilization
#23: David Kelly, Died: July 18, 2003. British biological weapons expert, was said to have slashed his own wrists while walking near his home. Kelly was the Ministry of Defence's chief scientific officer and senior adviser to the proliferation and arms control secretariat, and to the Foreign Office's non-proliferation department. The senior adviser on biological weapons to the UN biological weapons inspections teams (Unscom) from 1994 to 1999, he was also, in the opinion of his peers, pre-eminent in his field, not only in this country, but in the world.
#24: Michael Perich, Age: 46. Died: October 11, 2003. Died in one-vehicle car accident. The LSU West Nile research scientist was wearing his seat belt and drowned. He was LSU professor who helped fight the spread of the West Nile virus.
#25: Robert Leslie Burghoff Age: 45. Died November 20, 2003. Scientist. Killed by a hit and run driver that jumped the kerb and ploughed into him in the 1600 block of South Braeswood, Texas. He was studying the virus plaguing cruise ships. April 2004: Mohammed Munim al-Izmerly, a distinguished Iraqi chemistry professor dies in American custody from a sudden hit to the back of his head caused by blunt trauma. It was uncertain exactly how he died, but someone had hit him from behind, possibly with a bar or a pistol. His battered corpse turned up at Baghdad's morgue and the cause of death was initially recorded as "brainstem compression". It was discovered that US doctors had made a 20cm incision in his skull.
2004
#26: Robert Shope, Age: 74, Died: January 23, 2004. Virus Expert Who Warned of Epidemics, Dies died of lung transplant complications. Later purported to have died of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis which can be caused by either environmental stimulus or a VIRUS. Dr. Shope led the group of scientists who had an 11 MILLION dollar fed grant to ensure the new lab would keep in the nasty bugs. Dr. Shope also met with and worked with Dr. Mike Kiley on the UTMB Galveston lab upgrade to BSL 4. When the upgrade would be complete the lab will host the most hazardous pathogens known to man especially tropical and emerging diseases as well as bioweapons.
#27: Dr. Michael Patrick Kiley, Age: 62. Died: January 24, 2004. Expert on Mad Cow and Ebola. He had a good heart, but it ‘gave out’ and death ruled heart failure.
#28: Vadake Srinivasan Died: March 13, 2004. Microbiologist crashed car into guard rail and ruled a stroke.
#29 Unnamed. Age: Unknown. Died: May 5, 2004: A Russian scientist at a former Soviet biological weapons laboratory in Siberia died after an accident with a needle laced with ebola. Scientists and officials said the accident had raised concerns about safety and secrecy at the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology, known as Vector, which in Soviet times specialized in turning deadly viruses into biological weapons. Vector has been a leading recipient of aid in an American programme.
#30: William T. McGuire , Age: 39 Body Found May 5, 2004, last seen late April 2004. Body found in 3 Suitcases floating in Chesapeake Bay. Was NJ University Professor and Senior programmer analyst and adjunct professor at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark.
#31: Dr. Eugene Mallove, Age: 56. Died: May 14, 2004. Murdered in attack at end of his driveway. Alt. Energy Expert who was working on viable energy alternative program and announcement. Norwich Free Academy graduate. Beaten to death during an alleged robbery. Mallove was well respected for his knowledge of cold fusion. He had just published an “open letter” outlining the results of and reasons for his last 15 years in the field of “new energy research.” Dr. Mallove was convinced it was only a matter of months before the world would actually see a free energy device.
#32: Antonina Presnyakova Died: May 25, 2004. Former Soviet biological weapons laboratory in Siberia has died after accidentally sticking herself with a needle laced with Ebola Russian scientist dies in Ebola accident at former weapons lab.
#33: Thomas Gold. Died: June 22, 2004. Austrian born Thomas Gold famous over the years for a variety of bold theories that flout conventional wisdom died of heart failure. Gold’s theory of the deep hot biosphere holds important ramifications for the possibility of life on other planets, including seemingly inhospitable planets within our own solar system. He was Professor Emeritus of Astronomy at Cornell University and was the founder (and for 20 years director) of Cornell Center for Radiophysics and Space Research. He was also involved in air accident investigation.
#34: Dr. Assefa Tulu, Age: 45. Died: June 24, 2004. Found dead in his office. Dallas County Epidemiologist.
#35 Dr Paul Norman, Age: 52. Died: June 27, 2004. Of Salisbury Wiltshire. Killed when the single-engine Cessna 206 he was piloting crashed in Devon. Expert in chemical and biological weapons. He traveled the world lecturing on defending against the scourge of weapons of mass destruction. He was married with a 14-year-old son and a 20-year-old daughter, and was the chief scientist for chemical and biological defence at the Ministry of Defence’s laboratory at Porton Down, Wiltshire. The crash site was examined by officials from the Air Accidents Investigation Branch and the wreckage of the aircraft was removed from the site to the AAIB base at Farnborough.
#36: John Mullen Age: 67. Died: June 29, 2004. A Nuclear physicist poisoned with a huge dose of arsenic. A nuclear research scientist with McDonnell Douglas dies from a huge dose of poisonous arsenic. Police investigating will not say how Mullen was exposed to the arsenic or where it came from. At the time of his death he was doing contract work for Boeing.
#37: Dr Bassem al-Mudares. Died July 21, 2004. Mutilated body was found in the city of Samarra, Iraq*. He was a Ph.D. chemist and had been tortured before being killed.
#38: Dr. John Badwey, Age 54. Died: July 21, 2004. Scientist and accidental politician when he opposed disposal of sewage waste program of exposing humans to sludge. Suddenly developed pneumonia like symptoms then died in two weeks. Biochemist at Harvard Medical School specializing in infectious diseases.
#39: Professor John Clark, Age: 52, Died: August 12, 2004. Found hanged in his holiday home. An expert in animal science and biotechnology where he developed techniques for the genetic modification of livestock; this work paved the way for the birth, in 1996, of Dolly the sheep, the first animal to have been cloned from an adult. Head of the science lab which created Dolly the sheep. Prof Clark led the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, one of the world’s leading animal biotechnology research centres. He played a crucial role in creating the transgenic sheep that earned the institute worldwide fame. Prof Clark also founded three spin-out firms from Roslin - PPL Therapeutics, Rosgen and Roslin BioMed.
#40: Mohammed Toki Hussein al-Talakani Died: September 5, 2004: Iraqi nuclear scientist* was shot dead in Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad. He was a practising nuclear physicist since 1984.
#41: Matthew Allison Age: 32. Died: October 13, 2004. Fatal explosion of a car parked at an Osceola County, Fla., Wal-Mart store was no accident, Local 6 News has learned. Found inside a burned car. Witnesses said the man left the store at about 11 p.m. and entered his Ford Taurus car when it exploded. Investigators said they found a Duraflame log and propane canisters on the front passenger's seat.
#42: John R. La Montagne, Died: November 2, 2004. Died while in Mexico, no cause stated. Ph.D., Head of US Infectious Diseases unit under Tommie Thompson. Was NIAID Deputy Director.
#43: Taleb Ibrahim al-Daher Died: December 21, 2004: Iraqi nuclear scientist was shot dead north of Baghdad by unknown gunmen. He was on his way to work at Diyala University when armed men opened fire on his car as it was crossing a bridge in Baqouba, 57 km northeast of Baghdad. The vehicle swerved off the bridge and fell into the Khrisan river. Al-Daher, who was a professor at the local university, was removed from the submerged car and rushed to Baqouba hospital where he was pronounced dead.
#44 and 45: Tom Thorne and Beth Williams Died: December 29, 2004 Two wild life scientists, Husband-and-wife wildlife veterinarians who were nationally prominent experts on chronic wasting disease and brucellosis were killed in a snowy-weather crash on U.S. 287 in northern Colorado.
2005
#46: Jeong H. Im Age: 72. Died: January 7, 2005. Korean Jeong H. Im, retired research assistant professor at the University of Missouri - Columbia and primarily a protein chemist, died of multiple stab wounds to the chest before firefighters found in his body in the trunk of a burning car on the third level of the Maryland Avenue Garage. MUPD with the assistance of the Columbia Police Department and Columbia Fire Department are conducting a death investigation of the incident. A person of interest described as a male 6’ – 6’2” wearing some type of mask possible a painters mask or drywall type mask was seen in the area of the Maryland Avenue Garage. Researcher, retired protein chemist, was found in the burning trunk of his car with stab wounds to the chest.